Phantom Limb
by rbackwards
Summary: A young man realizes he's been the victim of a prophecy. He struggles to make sense of his place in an unfamiliar world. Sound familiar? Nothing's familiar to this young man. Nothing except his aunt Arthur. New readers: give this one some time.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The first time I used magic I thought it was just an accident.

It begins and ends with small things. First you're looking for your keys, and then you feel their weight in your pocket and stop looking. Then when you come across your wallet where you left it in last night's pants, you sort of wonder how your keys made it to the pants you just put on, but only in a shallow sort of way, not quite making it to the surface. Later in your car you reach for your phone, which is fully charged, and while speaking a name into it to call, you half-remember how it was beeping all last night because it had run down, but by the time your call is connected, this thought vanishes. At the counter of a diner you order coffee and read your newspaper, and while you hold the paper with one hand, your other hand reaches for a sweetener, then pauses in mid-reach while you read an interesting paragraph. When you've finished reading, there is a small pink packet between your fingers.

Most people know what it's like to get in a car and drive somewhere with no awareness of stopping for traffic lights or even the route being driven, if it's a route taken daily. There are so many times that one finds one's self passing through existence with only absent-minded nods to action or circumstance, that it's often a challenge to see when something small has changed in one's surroundings. It could be a new house on the way to work, or the fact that a regular where you buy groceries has become pregnant. It's this kind of thinking that kept me asleep for so long, or acting as if the world rotated but I stayed still, that life presented me with things instead of my creating or taking them for myself. If I had been used to making instead of accepting, to driving instead of riding, I might have noticed, for example, that before the sweetener was in my hand, it simply hadn't existed before, that there had been a small puff of air as this small familiar object had sprung in to being because I thought about it.

I grew up medium. Not that nothing ever happened to me, plenty of things did. And not that I grew up a medium. Not only was I not connected to the spirit world, I was also not particularly connected to the material one. Surrounded though I was by a veritable whirlwind of the unusual, I managed not to let any get on me. Except one thing — I didn't change my name when I was eighteen, when I could have. "Deasil" is uncommon enough, in fact unheard of, and I didn't know its origin until it was a little too late. Besides, every time I'd asked my aunt what it meant she'd just tell me to move to my right a little. Later I figured out that she had been saying, "a small move to the right, dear", and that that was what a deasil was — a small movement to the right. Used only to refer to a motion during the casting of a spell. That had struck me as a little odd. But not enough to nudge me out of medium.

Everything else I have to say I simply didn't see. My aunt Arthur, who raised me, was always throwing salt around. Every time I looked around she was tossing salt out of the front door or out of a window. I thought since she spent a lot of time in the kitchen there was just a lot of excess seasoning on her hands. And it honestly never occurred to me that, from the time I was four and went to live with her until I finally left her house, I never knew her to have any kind of a job. She was small, wiry and dark, and her leanly muscular arms had surprisingly dark hair on them, which I chalked up to her Mediterranean heritage. I tend towards the pale myself, and I sometimes thought about how different we must have looked when we walked to the market together.

She had purpose when she moved, and commanded a curious sort of respect in our neighborhood, which is to say that crowds seemed to part when we approached, people not even looking up as we approached but sort of bent or rippled around us, like a bow wave. Once I waved at a girl I knew from school in one of these crowds, but she didn't seem to hear me, or seemed unable to hear me, and when I said something about it to Aunt Arthur, she said in a distracted tone of voice, "I'm sorry, dear, but it's just so much easier to do it this way," and then as if catching herself, said hurriedly, "I mean, it's hard to hear anything in the street, isn't it?"

As she said this, she seemed to relax and lowered her handbag, which she'd been holding before her like a barrier. Almost immediately it became impossible for us to continue talking about it because the crowd became much more dense and we had to struggle to get through it. I suppose it doesn't look like I was very aware, and that I've seen a lot of things in retrospect that I had been oblivious to at the time, but I'll say this to you — if someone had been wiping your memory daily for most of your life you would probably miss a few things too.

These days, when I try to scrape together something resembling a past (the writing of this missive being a part of my process), I try to figure out what allows me to remember one event while obscuring others, and I think the answer has to do with self-preservation — that whatever it is that makes me who I am, whatever commonality that strings together those brief flashes of memory, asserted itself beyond all efforts to fragment it or make its parts unable to recognize each other; that I was always able to find the thread again and somehow continue, like the way old friends can still talk after years apart. This fills me with something resembling pride — and because my past feels like it happened to someone else, and that person who I will never meet held on so fiercely so that I would live, I also feel something like gratitude.

When I think of Aunt Arthur I feel many things, and I know gratitude must be in there somewhere, but it's squashed beneath ire and exasperation and also a secret mixture of horror and rage at what she did to me. And so poorly! Not like I could ever have all of my memory back after she'd picked it from me so haphazardly, like a child cleans up a mess by grabbing things at random. When I finally had collected enough bits of myself to make a fist to shake at her, she cowered and confessed in her jaggedly-breaking alto that she was just plain bad at it after all, should never have been left alone to handle it, and how they expected her to be a guardian to me, much less a bloody aunt, was beyond her, she'd only done what was right and expected and what had to be, but she'd hated every minute and besides, the words were so awfully hard to pronounce, and remember…

Most of this was babble to me at that moment. I'd been angry with her over something completely different that (not surprisingly) I can't remember now, but for some reason what she was saying prodded a nascent presence of mind in me and I just let her talk. She said that the night she heard the words spoken she knew they were about me, knew it like she knew her own name, and when she told them about it, they said (and no doubt about it, she emphasized with a curving finger pointing not quite at me as if she were talking to someone else) that I would have to be kept away from all of it, kept clear, so that if the other boy turned out not to be the one, well, I would be safe until the time was right. But after all the rush of escaping and hiding and transforming (I'd thought she said "transporting" at first), when things quieted down, and no one came, she'd begun to wonder if maybe it wasn't exactly as the woman said, and when finally word had come to her that the evil one was in fact gone forever she had realized with some degree of surprise that her life was something different now than it had been, she had become used to her life, that caring for me had become her pleasure rather than her duty, and that she was rather used to being someone's aunt. Better that than some lonely, pointless nobody who no one would know if they saw him. Even though no one really noticed her now. The one thing, the one thing (she pointed her finger crookedly again, making me want to look behind myself) that she couldn't let go of, now that her purpose had evaporated, was me. She knew if I remembered, I would keep remembering, and she wouldn't be able to stop it, that as the old things flowed in and took over that she would be forced out and that there would be nothing left of her.

I stood there, very still, for a few moments.

She said softly, "You should do what you want, now. You're a man."

I said, "So were you, right?"

I lay on the seabed, in the shallows, and watched above me as the waves slowly rolled over like history. Where there might have been clouds visible in the sky I could see, bent and distorted through the water, vague images that might have been faces, which I knew I would never be able to resolve. This frustrated me, and I began to move my limbs in an awkward manner, trying to release myself from the sand, but it wasn't working, and the surface seemed very far away — was I breathing? I had to breathe. I was suffocating. With a final huge effort, the weight was lifted, my eyes were open, and my patchwork blanket was hovering about four feet above my nose, trembling slightly.

Well, good morning to me. This was not the first overtly weird thing that had happened to me, but it was maybe the most impressive — if a previously inanimate quilt now retreating to a corner of the room and assuming a stance that that could only be described as reproachful could be called impressive. Since I had forbidden Aunt Arthur to empty my memory out, these things had begun to happen more — or at least I had begun to remember them. She'd told me that some days I'd come home with a certain look in my eye, and she'd known immediately that I'd had a "bit of a fit" and would squeeze my mind like a sponge — or it was more like changing a baby's diaper to her. Clearly I'd been making things happen around me and trying to hide it myself, because no one was following me around cleaning up my messes all the time, were they? And anyway, when I'd asked her what that look was and she couldn't describe it with any accuracy, I began to think she was being perhaps a little over-generous with her mind-cleaning.

I sat up in the bed, keeping the blanket in the corner of my eye. I had not yet made sense of everything Arthur had said last night and was thus unconvinced that its emotive nature was a good thing. I'd gathered that there were communities of folk like us around the world, that they were most often separate from everyone else, and that our being in the middle of a big city was very unusual — sort of a protective measure. These strange abilities seemed to show up in children, but I was a late bloomer, and more so because of my chronic forgetfulness. Apparently I had a mother and father in England somewhere, who were unaware of my current state of existence, and my aunt had taken it upon herself to spirit me away from grave danger into forgetfulness. Worst of all, I think, was the thought that Arthur now seemed to be somewhat in doubt as to the actual level of threat to me, and that maybe…as she put it, "perhaps they were talking about someone else — it was rather loud in the pub at the time…"

I think what kept me from being too angry at her was the idea that I didn't really know what I was missing. If someone had cut my arm off, for instance, there would be the obvious loss-of use, and the stigma and the quick looks away. I might even feel it tingle sometimes, the not-arm, as my broken nerves tried to make sense of the discontinuity, like a map of Dresden after the bombing, with neighborhoods missing. But I had no reference point to feel real loss. I knew there were families with mothers and fathers, but I also knew that I was not of that, that was not for me. I had my diminutive, hirsute, skittish, tremulous and unequivocally, frustratingly lovable aunt, and there hardly seemed to be room for anyone else.

I edged around the blanket, which seemed equally anxious to avoid me, and wandered down the hall. Arthur was in the kitchen cooking breakfast when I shuffled in, fuzzy with too many thoughts too soon after waking. I'd never known her to make any noise making breakfast, so that morning's clanking and scraping was a bit of a surprise. She was hunched over the stove, elbows jutting out at odd angles, muttering and clutching a yellow plastic spatula in one hand and a fat black chopstick in the other. The sound of my dragging feet caught her attention and she jumped a little, looking slightly guilty, then relaxed and said, "Oh, well, dear, I suppose it would be no surprise at this point. I just wanted to try it the other way, for once. I'm a bit useless without…what is it, dear?"

She'd been pointing the chopstick at the pan she'd been using to burn eggs, and as she spoke the crusts of egg rose up and hovered in front of her for a moment before sailing into the bin.

I said, rather thickly, "You have a magic chopstick?"

She looked a little piqued. "Ebony and four-leaf-clover, ten inches. Good for charms," she recited with some pride.

I must have had a foolish look on my face.

"Merlin, boy, it's a bloody wand!"

Somehow, this appealed to my burgeoning sense of the absurd. I merely tilted my head in acceptance.

"You might want to throw some things in a suitcase," she said, still irritated, as though I had been teasing her, and utterly unlike someone who had hidden my entire life from me. "It's high time you see a little of where you came from."

"You're..." I had to shake my head. "You're taking me to meet my parents?"

"Don't you think they'd want to see you?" she snapped.

I felt increasingly like I was walking into a fog. "Are you saying they've known where I am all this time?"

"Of course not!" Something peaked, then diminished in her small frame. Her bitterness dissolved into shame, and she whispered, "They think you're dead."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It can be hard to find your way someplace, and this is true for everyone. Harder still when you know very well that you've been there before, but can't seem to make a map in your head to your destination. I see myself then like an idiot cook in a grocery store — all the ingredients, but dinner's unlikely. I was trying to meet Arthur in a bookstore that I know now to have been literally around the corner from where we lived. And trying to meet her is how it felt — trying to find myself already there, skipping all intermediate steps and with no awareness of process. I was able to be there but not able to get there.

This, for better or worse, is how I discovered Apparation.

In Calculus class, I'm told, I had an issue with showing my work. My professor had insisted on seeing every formula resolved, or else "the result is invalid" (according to a graded quiz of mine, scrawled in red by a shaky hand). In retrospect I feel justified in not dissecting the process in explicit detail — first off, I couldn't be expected to remember the structures of the theorems I'd been taught two days previous, could I…and second, any landing is a good landing, as it is said. By someone, I'm not sure who. So when I would draw a graph of a function without doing anything else, I felt vaguely justified, or anyway if you'd asked me if I felt justified I might have given a vague assent before forgetting all about it.

None of this was in my head when I left the apartment, went down the stairwell and opened the front door of the building into poor weather. Even less was there when I tried to remember how to get to the bookstore. Cars hissed hatefully by. People walking with purpose and direction I could only imagine having. I can remember a feeling of withdrawing, resenting the unfamiliarity of the familiar, of pulling inward like a hermit crab, away from the cold wind and the drizzle, and wanting to just be there already, and my frustration shrank to a singularity, and took me with it. There was a tug, and a pop, and then my aunt was throwing a myriad of papers at me with a screech.

My first thought was, why are you doing that? My second one was, this place sure is dusty. Do they even sell any of these books or is this actually a dust farm? Beyond that I was a little unwilling to look around me, having had a mangy bookstore thrust on me in such an overly familiar and brusque fashion.

She glared at me briefly before she began hurriedly to pick up the mess, consisting of a few sheets of what looked like page three hundred of the tax code, and a couple of rolls of very heavy paper. "You could let a person know before doing that, you know — or even if you couldn't, well, I don't…" She returned to her usual muttering. I was watching her as though she were on television. Here I'd just moved from one place to another, showing absolutely no work mind you, and I was honestly a bit flustered by that, and this snarky little figure in front of me was irritated that I'd startled her - instead of surprised or… impressed, perhaps, that would have been me impressed right there. A brief skirmish broke out in my mind between the irksome-male-aunt camp and the I-just-did-something-outlandishly-weird/cool/frightening contingent with the victor being a third party, the short-attention-span militia, always stepping in to break up any unruly gathering before things got ugly.

"What's that in your hair?" I said.

She batted harriedly at her hair for a moment before shrugging her shoulders impatiently. "It's the bloody pigeon."

"Ah."

"Don't come that tone with me," she said, but clearly losing her head of steam. "It helps with the journey. They're quite good at finding their way over long distances, and with one along you always wind up getting where you're going."

"But why…" I gestured at my own hair, anticipating with some dread the inexorable pull of the bizarre that had bloomed of late like a whirlpool around my aunt.

"Well, my hands were full, weren't they," she said flatly. That I could accept.

"And they allow them on planes?" I asked.

"How should I know?"

"Wouldn't that be useful to know ahead of time?"

"And you feel you'll be needing to have that bit of information in the future?" she asked a little archly.

Around this time I had a memory. Slightly unusual for me at the time. I remembered a conversation I'd had with Arthur a few days ago in which we had spoken for at least five minutes before either of us realized we were talking about completely different things. She expected me to know things I didn't know, and was very circumspect in the way she spoke about the things she'd been hiding so long, and it left one feeling like one had boarded the wrong bus, so to speak, and was now very far from home.

"Are we not going to England today?"

"Well of course we are, but not by plane," she said.

"On a sh-"

"Honestly, Deasil, where have you been?" She was on the verge of losing patience with me, but suddenly she gasped, and closed her eyes. She swallowed hard (could I have simply not noticed that commanding lump in her throat all this time?) and her bony cheeks seemed frail and her skin drawn too tight over her face, and she said, "I'm sorry dear. I know where you've been. We're taking a portkey. It's like what you just did, only it lets you go further. In this case, all the way to England. It's why I said you should bring the small bag."

The difference between Aunt Arthur and me was: she wanted to forget all about what she had done to me and why. I wanted to remember as much as I could.

All right, then - large, very large blue eyes, that might be able to see backwards as well as forwards; that demonstrated a profoundly neutral mind operating them. I still remember them now, what it was like to see them erupt from nowhere behind my aunt, followed Cheshire-cat-like by the rest of a silvery-blonde woman in black robes. She had the appearance of evenness, of the person who meant the phrase "all things being equal". She took me in and processed me somehow and then put me back almost untouched, like a careful botanist.

She had a pinwheel in her hand.

Arthur turned and said, "Oh, is that us, dear?"

"Yes," she said in a light voice that sounded like a violin played very high and very soft. "I'm a bit early. I'm very eager to begin my journey." She stepped forward, her eyes following my aunt before returning to me. They seemed to land anywhere but on my own, but not in a shy way — rather, she was seeing details that interested her. I had an impulse to ask her if she knew me, and did so.

She almost smiled, in the sense that her face had been so tranquil beforehand that smiling didn't change her face much. Her eyes went to my right, then somewhere above my eyes. "We have not met."

I was running a list of questions in the way that you run a fever ("Are you a magician? Did that hurt just now? Are you Irish?") and my aunt decided it was best to starve them out of me rather than feed them, so with only a vaguely horrified look at the woman which I could not explain, and a glance at my face as though she'd forgotten something, she reached simultaneously for me and the pinwheel, which I thought at the time to be both strange and rude. At this point the woman was between my aunt and me, so it was a little awkward. As this didn't work, she began fishing in her purse for what turned out to be her chopstick and trying to see around the woman while she waved it in my direction. Recalling (!) the eggs, I avoided her line of sight.

The woman seemed to know what I was doing and casually blocked my aunt. I was able to manage a grin and say, "Are you…" before she nodded knowingly and said, "This is new to you, isn't it."

"Most…things are."

"It's a lot at first," she said in her thoughtful singsong as she absently fended off Arthur. "I have …friends who shared your situation, though only to a small degree. They said they found it like coming home. Like remembering things they'd really always known."

I'd like to say that filled me with hope, but actually it didn't sound that comforting. Memory had turned out to be a jagged path, and never enough information to make me comfortable. Always the pieces, never the whole puzzle.

"You can't hide him for long," she said, looking at me though I knew she spoke to Arthur, which was curious given that she was hiding me from my aunt.

"I know very well what I am capable of," my aunt said as she finally had an opening - and my face began to warm. I wasn't feeling embarrassed, though. She was just my aunt, and I didn't know why I should —

The woman's gaze still didn't meet mine, hovering above it a little. "I hope you enjoy your visit, then," she said to me. "Maybe we'll meet again when I come back."

Inexplicably, rather than ask her name, I squeezed out, "How long is your trip?"

She looked, if such a thing were possible, even more thoughtful. "That depends on whether I find what I'm looking for."

Arthur seized the pinwheel and said, "We must be off."

Realizing there was no arguing, I stepped towards my aunt, who was looking at her watch.

"I'm sorry," I said to the woman, not sure why I was saying it.

""You couldn't help it, could you?" she said, blinking slowly. "You don't know very much for sure."

"Right enough," I said, knowing it wasn't an insult. I was about to say something else equally as pithy when the lights went out, there was a faint sensation of cold and a strong sensation of sucking and nausea, and woman and dusty bookstore were replaced with what appeared to me as I tumbled to the floor to be a huge hall full of fireplaces. My aunt helped me up, handed the pinwheel to someone very short that I didn't really see and bustled me through a crowd of really eccentrically-dressed people from what appeared to be all unfamiliar walks of a completely different life. Still dizzy with nausea, I didn't notice too much as we left the building we were in and made our way to a small newsagent's.

It was impossibly small, actually. As my post whatever-the-hell-that-was grogginess began to clear, I saw that it was more like a broom closet set into the side of a building. There was a space for a fellow like me to step in and become generally aware of what things were sold there and then need to step outside to retrieve his wallet from his pocket. The proprietor was visible behind yellowed glass set into the rear wall of this tiny place, an Indian man reading a newspaper with a slowly-spinning mobile-like sculpture to his right. I decided to wait outside.

He barely looked up at my aunt before saying, "Destination." His voice through the glass made him sound like he was being squeezed from all sides.

She fished a piece of paper out of somewhere and pressed it to the glass.

"Thirty," he said. She rummaged in a bag and drew out some bills.

"British," he said.

She rummaged more, and then came up with some other bills, these with some color.

"Galleons," he said.

Her shoulders sagged a little. One last rummage (during which she banged her elbow on a magazine rack and cursed in an always surprising baritone) produced a bag of what sounded like coins. She dropped it on the counter by the glass with some finality.

I turned and looked out at the afternoon, which was like the weather back home — a rain like a million baby angels spitting at random.

"You told my parents I'm dead?"

The words must have come out of me. Only late.

Arthur inhaled sharply.

The voice behind the counter said, "Make that forty."

She turned and eyed me balefully. "I bloody well did not! They didn't ask!"

"Who…who would they ask?" I parried, but it was like a rapier versus a two-by-four with nails in it.

"Exactly," she said triumphantly.

"Well, thirty it is then," the voice said. I turned around to have a word with the voice, but as I did so the bag on the counter vanished and was replaced with a darning egg. I felt obliged to accept that, but I didn't have to like it.

"Oh, look, the express," I said.

She gave me another dirty look, grabbed my hand and held it to the egg. Possibly I should have prepared myself for what I knew was coming, but I couldn't imagine how to. I settled for a deep breath.

One more cosmic peristalsis spasm later, I was mostly standing in a country lane (I wasn't entirely standing, though I was entirely in the lane, though I felt like parts of me might have been elsewhere), thoroughly disoriented and a little irritated at having entire locales pressed upon me against my will. It was like having someone force food on you when you weren't done with what you had, in fact when you were overly full anyway, because you'd picked up something on the way and eaten that to be safe, and then there was dinner also, so you were eating to be polite, and then someone comes out with a plate of souvlaki, and you'd never had it or wanted it, really, something about the name, but here it was, like it or not…well, anyway I was saturated. I'd dropped my bag and my aunt was reaching to pick it up when it reared up on one side, avoiding her grasp, and inched over beside me like a large sloppy bulldog with no legs.

"All right then, but carry it, it won't be able to keep up," she said.

We had walked for a few minutes, mostly in silence. My bag had stopped squirming, but had indicated wordlessly in no uncertain terms that I was not to carry it by the strap. I had to settle for cradling it in my arms like a very fat baby. At this point I should say that there was a subtle tension that I felt just behind my eyeballs, and I was currently ascribing it to the buildup of things that I could make no sense at all of, and the pressure that such things might bring to bear on the skull of the recipient of said events. I was attempting to say things to myself like "this is a nice country lane", and not "what has someone gone and done with Manhattan?" The lane wound a bit, and was lined by trees, but one could still see the odd farmhouse here or there. There were no people visible.

Arthur seemed a little tense. She was smoothing her hair and her dress and licking her lips. I was wondering to myself if, when she'd left here, she'd told anyone where she was going, or how she'd likely appear when she got back. In any event, she moved as though she were climbing up the side of a building with a rope, as much pulling herself along as walking.

Suddenly she spoke. "They have to understand. They must! They'd have done the same thing, if I had…if I ever…" She bowed her head before turning to me and saying, "If I had been made to carry children, I…well, I would have…and I would have carried you…"

I felt a rush of lopsided warmth for this person. She was mixed in a funny order and came out a bit lumpy, but I loved her. "I think you have." I was thinking about how she had built a womb of sorts around me, and was now - in a way — delivering me — and as I was fully grown that had to smart a little. "I don't understand much of …anything…but I know you, more than I know anyone —"

"That's my fault!" she said despondently.

" - And I think I can guess how difficult it was for you to care for me, and —"

She stopped and put her hand on my shoulder. "I can't imagine it being difficult for anyone to care for you, D," she said, the baritone somehow a more tender tenor this time. "If I were any better at anything, you'd have at least been able to remember a friend or two." She began walking again, veering off the path towards a vacant lot. "You did have them; it was just so difficult for you to keep them when you couldn't— …when I had to keep you from remembering."

I sighed as we stopped at the edge of the lot. "Well, how can I miss what I can't remember?"

She was shaking her head very slowly. I thought she was denying what I was saying for a moment, but then I noticed her eyes darting left and right. They were narrowed, giving her a sort of cartoonish shifty appearance. This went on, inexplicable but riveting, for at least a minute, accompanied by a few elaborate sequences of backing up, walking briskly for a few steps and then jerking her head around. Finally a look of recognition appeared on her face and she grabbed a fistful of my jacket, pulling me forward towards the lot. I was going to ask her about it, really, but the words "bloody vacant lot" in my head were replaced abruptly by "bloody big house". I stumbled through a gate that hadn't been there before, under a trellis covered with vines, and stood looking at the house silently for a moment.

Then I turned to Arthur and asked "What was all of that…?' I gestured with my hands. "Did you just…make this place or something?"

"No, of course not," she said. "I just didn't want to walk into the fence. Nettles." She was standing next to a bell hanging on a cast-iron thing that holds bells (apparently, anyway I had no name for it in memory) and she seemed to brace herself before giving the cord a few vigorous shakes and looking towards the front door.

After a few moments the door opened. A familiar-looking man stood there, which is a lot to say for me as I was finding my own reflection in a mirror at that time to be only hauntingly familiar.

After a pause, he said to Arthur, "You're wearing a dress."

Arthur was quiet.

"Lilac is really your color."

The man smiled a little. I knew that smile. That one thing, I knew.

It was mine.

"You and your friend," he said, not yet looking at me, "have come at a bit of a funny time."

She found her voice. "You…I'm just going to say it."

"Say what, Arthur?"

"You have a son." It was one of those moments where I expected the words to echo, and the world to stop, and —

"Not yet," he said, grinning. "And how did you know? We haven't told anyone yet."

"What — what on Earth are you talking about?"

I was thinking, "She never actually says that to me."

"She just went into labor," he said. "I mean, not ten minutes ago. I thought you were the midwife." From inside the house there came a moan and a clear feminine voice. "Is that the blessed midwife or are we going to stick our heads in the blessed fire and drag her blessed self here by force?"

The man tried to suppress his grin, but failed. "She made me a promise that this time she was not going to curse, and bless her, she's trying."

Arthur had the look of someone whose grand entrance had been spoiled by the dog doing something unspeakable with a throw pillow. In circumstances like this, if there ever had been any, she seemed to be served well by her impatience with the world — it allowed her to cut through a lot of nonsense and get right to the point. Or her point, anyway.

"Your son. Is. Here." She glared at him to add weight to her words.

"Not. Just. Yet," he replied, clearly a little at sea. "Why are we talking like film trailers?"

"Film…" She looked apoplectic. "Bloody hell, man, look at him!"

For the first time, he really looked at me. His eyes seemed to focus on mine, and then a curious train of expressions crossed his face, of bemusement to bewilderment to a moment I felt like a sharp pain as he saw something he knew but could not believe. His gaze wandered somewhere over my eyes and back down over my face.

I wanted to say something, like "I'm Deasil, that means a little move to the right, and who are you?" That somehow didn't make it out. I couldn't say "I missed you," for obvious reasons.

I settled on, "I'm okay."

He reached out and brushed my hair from my forehead, a strange thing for a grown man to do to another grown man, and said softly, "Well, if that weren't enough, you certainly have her eyes."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

It's hard to know what to feel all the time. Most of us have a vocabulary of experiences to easily draw from when confronted with a new situation, and can usually find something that in some way at least remotely resembles it. For comparison, or at least as a basis from which to improvise. If you were to find yourself wandering through a bedroom in a pitch-black house that you've never been in before, and you know, this can and does happen, for instance if you wake up in a strange place and need to find your way to the nearest bathroom or escape with your life or avoid breakfast or what have you, then you might have a reasonable set of expectations concerning the contents of the room. Bed, nightstand, dresser. Some things that you encounter, though difficult and sometimes painful to identify in the dark, are reasonable, once you've figured them out. Exercise bicycle, foosball table, large stuffed polar bear doll. I felt that the man I was looking at had suddenly found a wading pool full of tapioca. To extend the metaphor, as tapioca is slippery when stood in, he naturally appeared a little wobbly. I thought of whether or not this expression might enter common parlance, but decided that "wobbly as my long lost father standing in a wading pool of tapioca" lacked a certain euphony.

Noticing something, I said, "You're busy."

He all of a sudden looked a little harried. "Yes, ah, well, I, huh, erm…" He sounded like he was making up a new alphabet. After a moment, he closed his eyes and collected himself.

"I never thought I'd see you again," he said simply. "You were our first-born, and…we were heart-broken when you disappeared. For so long, we just … we couldn't bring ourselves to … " He put his hand on my shoulder. "We loved you so much. It was only last year that we, we felt ready to – and now, you're here, and…" He managed a small chuckle. "And you're so big. Sorry, that's a strange thing to … You're grown up, and of course you're bigger." He gave me a look that I felt like I recognized, though I'd never seen it. Maybe, I thought, I'm just feeling sympathy for him, or maybe some things travel with the blood. He seemed to be saying, "a little help, maybe? I just have no bloody mention of this here. I'll be saying foolish things if I'm allowed to continue. Just step in any time, if you would."

"My Aunt tells me you and …my mother do magic as well." That's what I lobbed at him. The desire to help in my experience is not the same as the ability to do so.

"Okay…" He ran his hands through his hair. "I have a lot of questions, and I'm sure you do…" From somewhere in the house came a long, drawn-out groan. "But I'll be honest. My wife is about to have a baby, a son, our second son - and I've got to help her, and the midwife is late, and I'm …"

"Do you have a couch?" I said.

His face went blank.

Arthur finally spoke up. "We could sit on it while you two got on with the birthing."

"Yes. That'll – yes." He looked relieved. Here was something he could actually do.

There was a love seat of sorts in a room just off of the foyer where we could watch the front door. It was a beautiful door – heavy broad-grained wood, windows on either side, red velvet-looking drapes. He disappeared upstairs with a promise that when this was all over we would all sit down and make sense of all of this.

I was sitting there thinking about people I remembered. And basically there weren't any but Arthur. No friends that I went places with, no people at the store that I knew on sight, and… no women. That was actually really irksome. Imagine that. Arthur had said I was slow to get up in the morning, and I kind of remembered that, I suppose because she wiped my memory out at some time of day that wore off around breakfast. The awakening I was experiencing was a little like dragging myself out of bed, and one thing I was waking up to slowly, like a hangover, was the bitter feeling of having been lonely without being aware of it for many years. Not just an orphan, but no girlfriend. Ever.

I stood up. I had to say something out loud. I had to tell Arthur just how badly she'd ruined my life. I had to let this out or I would explode.

Abruptly the front door flew open, banging into the wall with considerable force. A little vase on a table by the door began to teeter, and my eyes were drawn to it for a moment, just as it began to fall over the edge. But then I looked at the person in the doorway.

These things, all at once. Very red hair. Flashing brown eyes. Splash of freckles. Pale gray robes. Are you all like this? Vase frozen, on the way to the floor, not moving at all. Curtains drawing up like shoulders shrugging. Her face towards me, gone from driven and intense to surprised and shocked. Her mouth open, her gasp. My heart thudding, my ears ringing. Just the first, just the first, just not used to…to…oh, god, she's so…

I'm the only one who knew the vase shattered before it hit the floor.

"Wh…wh…where is she?" she managed to get out. "Ooh," she added, looking down briefly at the vase bits everywhere. Words like "precious", "sparks" and "hmmerrrrhh" bubbled but never made it to my mouth because she bit her lip. What settled in my mind was, "I want to help with that," meaning the lip business, and fortunately I didn't actually say that. No, I came out with something far more suave.

"Err…you didn't break that."

Genius.

"Upstairs", Arthur said irritably. The woman took a second look at her, made up her mind, and put her conclusion away somewhere.

For goodness' sake, the curtains are showing off for her, I thought.

She'd turned at the noise and they were billowing in a way that was bashful yet unmistakably meant to impress, in a very forties-musical-with-water-ballet-sort-of-way. I was beginning to think that if this were I being magical, then I had about the most useless ability imaginable. Able to animate cloth objects and pop crockery at a distance. She would think I was an idiot.

"Who are you?" she said, regaining some of her bearings. What I liked was, she was a little irate-sounding. I guessed that she was unaccustomed to being surprised, and that my actually succeeding in doing so was considered an affront.

"No idea," I blurted out. Then, "Go on, they need you, I'll be here when you're done. We can figure it out then." Bloody tongue, made entirely of stupid.

"Right…" she said. "Right, then. I'll just…shall I…oh, Merlin, she must be – " She looked horrified, and rushed from the room. I heard her thumping up the stairs, and I can say now, there were twelve. Twelve thumps, not too loud, as she was a smaller woman, slight but fleet, I thought, and for some reason I wanted to see her running, hair floating madly, the image burning an afterimage in my eyes, like fingerpainting, like a flag on a brilliantly sunny day.

I turned to look at Arthur, weighing my words before saying, "Was it really necessary to have made me forget beautiful women?" I heard a roaring in my ears, my chest gave a great twist and all of a sudden I passed out.

Like anybody else, I don't remember all of my dreams, but I'm pretty sure the one I had during that blackout was a doozy.

I heard mumbling from far away, and struggled to hear it, but I couldn't move at all. In fact, I felt like a slab of petrified wood, only a memory of what it was to move and live. My eyes would not open. My hands would not move. It was as if I had never had a body, only a false memory of one, but it was a vivid memory, and so I felt some loss, and maybe a little pain. Yes, there was a bit of pain now. References. I needed references to something. Anything. I was really at sea here. Sea. I had had a dream, of being in the ocean, waves rolling over like…something or other, and faces in the clouds, and then I had woken up and there had been a blanket floating above me – was that still the dream? And then breakfast and then this lady, a sort of mannish-looking lady, fed me breakfast and eggs flew around the room, who was she – Ariel? Arnette? Arthur? Yeah, right, Arthur, get serious. Am I Arthur? I don't feel like an Arthur. No, I think her name is Arthur and I'm…I'm…a little movement to the right, dear…what?...Deasil! That sounded like a sneeze. She's my aunt. Not my uncle? No, my aunt.

Voices became more distinct. I wanted to struggle to the surface, but something was preventing it, and I was actually a little panicked about that. I pushed against it with all of my strength, and with a dull wrenching feeling my arms moved and my head jerked up. Now I could hear one of the voices quite clearly saying "Bloody hell!"

My eyes opened slowly, and I took in a good bit of red. On my left sat a really attractive redheaded woman, youngish, who looked a little amused. Directly in front of me was a tall redheaded man around my age with what looked like a miniature pool cue pointed in my general direction, though he wasn't threatening about it – rather, he actually looked a little baffled. (I thought I had more of a right to be baffled considering he had chosen a tiny pool cue to be the appropriate widget for this situation, whatever it was.) It seemed that he was not too far from a laugh, that he might never be. I thought I'd probably like him. The last redhead was a fortyish woman with kind eyes that were a little tired but clear. She had reached out to my arm that was kind of flailing a little and had grasped it gently.

They appeared to be nice, but I had no idea of who they were or where I was.

What I felt was a need to belong in this, that it seemed right for me to be here, and maybe I'd forgotten something, what got me here, why I was lying down in a strange house, why my head hurt a bit. Where was Arthur? Weren't we supposed to go somewhere?

Casting about, my mind came up with: "I'd love for us to go around the room introducing ourselves, but I wouldn't be able to hold up my end."

The younger woman abruptly laughed, then looked a little embarrassed. "Sorry," she said, "that wasn't funny." Brown eyes widened, then her lips parted, and I wondered if she thought that was an insult or something, and then after a bit of thought she said, "I'm going to wait outside now where I won't be…talking in here, or…something." She stood up, flushing a little, and shook her head slightly. To herself she said, "What on earth…"

"Will you be all right?" the young man said to my mother. He looked like he wanted to raise his wand again but was resisting it.

"With him? Always," she said.

"But he threw it off…I mean, right off…"

"Well, then, what help would that be again?" She grinned at him and with a flush of his own, he rose.

From the doorway to the room we were in, the young woman said, "It's nice seeing you again."

"Yeah," I said. "I'll try to remember that."

She looked a little quizzical.

"That's a little unusual for me, is all."

"Oh. Well." She actually looked mildly apologetic, as if she were saying, "Sorry I can't go anywhere with that – you're not giving me much to work with, are you?" Which I agreed with.

The young man looked a little amused, and a little irritated. I guessed that they were family to each other. "Come on, then, you can get your banter in later, love." The look she gave him of embarrassment and then of withering ire fascinated me. I wanted to see more of her expressions, as many as she had. Where that thought came from I wasn't sure.

But first things first. The door closed behind them and here we were.

"I'm Lily," she said softly.

"Best guess, my name is Deasil," I said.

"You're my son," she said, smiling, and I wanted to feel like I'd seen her smile before.

"I should have known…" I said.

"Known what?"

"You."

She formed a curious expression, mixed in with the smile. Her eyes shone a little.

"Yes," she said after a pause, "you should have known me all along."

"Baby."

"Pardon?"

"There was a … baby. Is it yours?"

"I'd say so."

Right. Hard to mistake that. "Boy or girl? Boy, right?"

"Right."

I said, "How's…how's he doing?"

"He's fine," she said, still smiling at me. I felt tike I was being breathed in. "Your father is remembering what it's like to hold an infant. It builds character, I imagine."

"How long was I, erm, whatever I was?"

"Ten hours. Your portkey lag must have been horrendous." She had a bit of mischief in her eyes, which, if they did look like mine, meant I had nice eyes. Dumb thought. It was hard to have any clarity, so many things rushing through me that I felt a little flat, the way that if you blend all colors of light together you get white, or if you blend all colors of paint you get a weird dark brown, or if you mix all of your food together you get something that's uniformly…well, that's what was in my mind. So many thoughts turned into noise.

"You were a little busy while you were out," she said.

"Huh?"

She was still smiling, but her eyes were steady, direct. "You released quite a bit of magic. It was a good kind of magic," she hastened to say. "It certainly helped with the delivery. Every bit of pain stopped, he came out easy as you please, and he barely cried, even at first. The healer said she could use you around at more of these things. Arthur…even Arthur was …affected."

An image of Arthur with her dark hairs standing on end popped into my head. "Is she all right?"

The smile changed to a grin. "Very well. Not expecting to have such…smooth arms. Those charms are a little difficult, I suppose…" She giggled. I thought of layers to a person, the appearance of calm and poise and the special joy each of us feels when some of the sweet underneath reveals itself, only to us. I knew she laughed around other people, but this one was for her and me. I had the feeling that she had a gift for intimacy, something one would want in a mother, helping with a skinned knee or making a wait in queue more bearable – and I had no idea where these images came from, maybe wishful or just my mind scavenging for things that seemed to belong, like a bower bird.

What came out was, "She lost her arm hair?"

She laughed, her eyes bright with amusement. "You enhanced all of the magic in the house, during your…fit. Maybe it extended beyond the house, I'm not sure. All of the midwife's spells, all of Arthur's charms for…for her appearance, even a little glamour charm I had going, everything was working so much more powerfully than it had been. Your father said that his favorite pot has a hole worn in it because a scrubbing spell got a little aggressive."

I didn't really know how to take this. I suppose that the reality, to use the term loosely, of my situation was taking its time settling on me. Magic was a word I somehow kept shrugging off, in the way that if you do something simple and someone keeps calling you a genius and thanking you repeatedly every time you see them and after all it was only a nickel or a pocket comb or figuring out the tip on lunch or whatever so why they insist upon talking about how grateful they are is beyond you, it was nothing, really, and I understood gratitude, in fact I felt beyond grateful, to this complete stranger who I instinctively liked and, I realized, needed so much from – needed to hear about where I came from, what I was like as a baby. Although…can you tell what an adult is like by looking at a childhood photo of them? I felt like all I could learn was what I was likely to be like, and did that make any sense? Was I trying to see if I was doing well, fulfilling any family destiny or predilection like, say, hating mushrooms or whistling through my nose when I slept just like some ancestor of mine did? And if that's the best that DNA has to offer, then it's fairly useless stuff, I thought, throwing that train off the tracks and coming back where I was.

"I…guess I'm happy to help?"

"Do you know what I like?" she asked.

I gazed in reply.

"I like that there are things going on in your mind that you don't say out loud, and though you're quiet sometimes, I know your mind is working and I know I would be delighted by what's going on in there."

In a rather incontinent way, I said, "I was taken away when I was little and we haven't seen each other since, you all do magic, and I can't remember anything. That wasn't what was going on in my mind just now, but it is. Now. Currently. Some things seem familiar but I'm not sure if it's just that I want them to, because you're, well, wonderful, and my…father seems great, and maybe it's early but I'm crushing on your midwife, and I may have to shut up now."

She paused before saying, "I always wished I could have found you – I thought you had been taken. It had been a terrible, dark time. People had been disappearing and then when out of the blue you were gone – "

It was the first time I'd seen her look like any of this had hurt, and I immediately wanted to make that go away. Somehow the fact that it had happened to me was not as real to me, because in a way it hadn't. In the way that one can never step into the same river twice, that self of mine, the boy I had been, was long gone, only vague clues remaining, a fragment of a toy or a scrap from a children's book abandoned in a distant past.

"- I couldn't imagine why you were even taken," she said. "Tom had been gone for four years, no one thought he'd ever return, so there was no reason why you would have to be taken." Her voice rose a little, but she managed to calm herself. "I suppose I'm just wondering where you were and what you were doing…are you able to talk about that?"

I thought for a moment. It felt like thinking, though nothing happened. Where did that thought come from? "I'm able to talk, but I don't really know. As far as I know, I've lived in…a big city with Arthur. I think my life's been okay, I'm more or less healthy, I can spell things correctly, you know, all that, but I sort of have a – thing with memory. It's like always being slow on the uptake. I really don't know anything about anything, until the right question is asked, and then I can sort of pull out a little piece of it, from somewhere, only I don't know where. It's hard to make sense of, because sometimes I can't tell if I'm really remembering something or if it's just my mind latching onto something that I would like to be a part of me."

She was moving between sad and furious until that last. "Is that…how you're feeling now?"

"Well, yes," I said. "You feel right to me. I think that maybe I'm a little scared of that, because as far as I know I've never had a mother, so it's a little alien to me, but at the same time…in every sense of the word, familiar."

She had the tiniest smile at the corners of her mouth. "Are you really crushing on my midwife?"

I sighed deeply. "Hi, mum."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

One would imagine that at some point the subject of my being abducted from a comparatively normal existence into one somewhat more…what would one call it? Bohemian? Sequestered? Whatever. It might be expected to come up. Also, one might expect that when it came up that the abductor, in addition to having, oh, swiped a happy child from his parents into a less-than-whirlwind life of obscurity and semi-oblivion due to repeated poorly-cast memory charms whilst suppressing his knowledge of his magic or anyone else's and preventing him for no apparent reason from having any meaningful interaction with anyone, also happened to be standing in the next room, well, that steps might be taken. Many rapid steps, towards the door leading to that room, by a woman I had recently found to be my mother.

For those readers who are obliged to re-read that passage to make sense of it, I can only say that it's clearly the product of someone who can rapidly put things out of his mind.

She had listened, not speaking, as everything I could recall came out in a rambling jerky narrative of disconnect and fragmentation, lonesomeness and longing for the unknowable. She was listening intently, but her face went from understanding nod and sympathetic moue to shaking head and testy sigh and finally to a universal danger sign if I've ever seen one, breathing through the nose with mouth pressed shut. Everyone has a point beyond which they can accept no further, hear no more without action. She was clearly a kind woman, a woman who chose warmth and harmony over ire and discord, but after all (I think now in retrospect) this was her son, and what had gone on was unacceptable, and there would be sorting, and retribution, and probably witchcraft. I was dragging myself out of the bed I was in, reaching feebly for her retreating form and saying, "Wait, now, don't you think – She didn't mean –"

"I'm sure she didn't, dear, but I just need to see her…just – see her…" I'm sure she thought she sounded reasonable. This was something I couldn't take care of by myself, so I did the first thing I could think of.

"Daaaad!"

She tugged the door open. If it had been locked, or barricaded, or nailed shut, it would still have opened.

My father stood right there in the doorway, my brother in his arms, and he began, "Now hang on, Lil –"

"James Potter, I hope you enjoyed making our second child, because if you don't get out of my way a third will be an anatomical impossibility."

"So be it," he said earnestly, widening his stance. "I promised you when we married that what was mine was yours and if you feel the need to destroy bits of me, I suppose it's your right – but I also promised to be your balance, and maybe hexing Arthur right now would cause more trouble that it's worth.'

"You have no idea how much trouble this is worth!" she said in a fierce whisper.

"I think I do," he said softly, and I realized that my brother's presence was intended to calm her, or at least prevent her from exploding. "I know how you feel, like no one else in this world, and you know that. But I've been talking to Arthur and I think you should consider listening before hexing."

She looked very much like she was considering catching on fire, so I said, "He looks like Mum."

She half-turned to me, and her eyes seemed to lose focus. After a moment, she caught up and said, "Yes, he does. Why don't you come and say hello to him?"

I stepped forward, a little woozy from getting up too quickly, and got a good look at him for the first time.

Strangely enough, he did look quite like her. (I hadn't actually seen him, I was just bluffing.) He had a dab of red hair and he was wrinkled and somnolent. His mouth was wet, and he looked to be a little streamlined, as if somehow he'd recently been squeezed out of somewhere. Imagine that. No, on second thought…

He was my brother.

I went from having one odd aunt and knowing nothing else, not even the lack of anything else, to having a mother, father and brother in one day.

"Hello," I said. His entire face frowned. This fascinated me. I reached my hand out to touch his head, right at the crown, and felt his skin, warm and delicate, almost painfully delicate. His little life, a flicker of energy, and a stirring of recognition. I suppose to everyone else it appeared that the room got a bit brighter, but for him and me, it got maybe a little darker around us. It felt like we were gathering something together from all around us and something was forming from it. His eyes opened, still blue, and something passed between us. I felt a stir in my stomach, an understanding. I knew him and he knew me.

My father said, "Nothing by halves, eh?"

My mother smirked at him. "They're clearly both ours."

I was someone's.

My father said, "Well, little man, I'd like you to meet your big brother, H- Deasil."

"The 'h' is silent," I said absently as I continued to look at my brother.

My mother half-laughed, but there was something else behind it. My father said, "Well, we haven't named him yet, but he's the shortest one here, so you'll know to whom we are referring." He looked at his wife directly, asking a question. She answered it with a shake of her head. "In any event, Lily's had a moment or two with you to talk, and I think it's time Mr. Short Pants spends a little time with his Mum and Long Shanks has a bit of time with his aging father."

"Prematurely senile," my mother muttered as she took the baby, but there was amusement coloring her voice, and it reminded me of the way that some jellyfish have bands of color that shimmer over their bodies, and I wondered how I remembered them because there was nothing around them in my mind, no memory of an aquarium or a TV show, just the memory of them and their beautiful ripples of polychrome, until very recently unseen by any human eye.

"Did he just…uhh…" is what came out of me. I felt that my brother and I had something in common. Things just came out of us seemingly at random.

My father's expression changed, but to his credit only very slightly. He gave Lily a look that said, "I did not plan it this way, but there you go, luck of the draw," but it disappeared when she glared at him for attempting to hand the baby to her.

"Ah, well, my sons," he said philosophically, "some conversations are best held over baby's crap, in the hope that the words will appear more sweet by contrast." Lily gave a loud snort of laughter, looked horrified, and then laughed some more. He gave her a searching look, and she composed herself, I think trying to look like the sort of person who has never had a negative thought in her life, much less one about pummeling her son's cross-dressing aunt.

"I promise you three that I will not do any damage to Arthur. I do want to ask questions, but none of them will hurt," she said. "And I'll bring along a bodyguard to help," she added, deftly taking the baby from him. "Good eye," she said to me.

"Actually it was more of a sonic, uh…never mind."

She bustled off downstairs.

I felt the room get a little smaller. He watched her go with a grin on his face that changed completely when he turned to me. I was sorry to see it go, and began to wish that I hadn't made his life more complicated by being here. Maybe I was okay where I was, levitating blankets and forgetting everything.

He must have seen something in my face, because he stepped forward and put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry," we both said.

He looked surprised. "What on earth do you have to be sorry about?"

"Your life. I mean, your life is wonderful. You have a new baby. Things are –" I gestured around at objects in the room. They seemed solid and like they were meant to be here. Bed, nightstand, dresser. Not like…me. "I'm just not sure I…"

His voice was very soft but full of feeling. His hand remained on my shoulder. "You have always belonged here. Our house was bent and broken when you were taken away. Lily and I…have always missed you. There's always been noise and activity here, you know, the boys in and out and even Ginny's known to make a bit of racket, and they all have their own sounds…but even now, when it's quiet around here, do you know what I always think?" He looked down, and his hand squeezed my shoulder, not painfully, but firmly. "I think, 'that's the sound of my son.' I heard your absence and I swear, it has been deafening. I never," he said, looking me in the eye, "ever got over it, because I knew that only one thing would fix it – having you back here with us. I know you don't remember much at all, but you should know that while you were with us you were loved by everyone around you, and your mum and me most of all. I have missed you like my right arm, like breathing, and if you want to stay here, I will do everything I can to make this your home, and be your father, your family, that has always belonged to you."

I liked him. All this time, I mean, I hadn't missed anyone, but I was missing everyone, or everyone was missing. It must have hurt, though I didn't know what it was that hurt. And his hurt must have been so much worse than mine. There was a little tremor in his voice at the end, and I wanted to do something to make him feel better. I tried to think of what fathers liked (theoretically, of course) and couldn't come up with a thing. So I did something I could not remember ever doing. With anyone. I hugged him.

What I thought was something along the lines of, "Is it the right thing to want this, just stepping into a life, already in progress? It all feels right, but do these people belong to me, and do I belong to them? Or is it just something I want?"

What I said was, "What boys and who's Ginny?"

He shook a little, but it was with laughter. His hand thudded on my back. "Funny how you do that. Lily does the same thing. Things just occur to you."

"It's what told me we were related," I said.

"Okay," he said, pulling away finally and wiping his eyes. "We have a lot to cover, but I want to ask you something first – how much do you want to hear of this? Are you feeling all right?"

"Should I sit down? Are we all devil-worshippers or something?"

He said solemnly, "No, but there are goats involved."

At my "uhhhh" he laughed again. "Not really. I suppose I shouldn't joke much with someone to whom this all seems bizarre."

"Maybe at first," I said.

"Okay. The boys and Ginny. They're the Weasley kids. Since their mother and father haven't been with us, they've been here at the house. There are a lot of boys, and one girl. And they would all be irked at me for characterizing them as such. Young men and a young woman. She's the midwife you met last night, the youngest, and the young man you met today is Ron. Then there's Fred and George, the twins; Percy; Charlie; and Bill is the oldest. Everyone lives elsewhere now but Ginny."

"What happened to their parents?"

He sighed and looked down. "It's complicated."

"What isn't?"

He shook his head. "It's just hard to explain, because we don't understand all of it. The Weasleys are friends of ours. Lily and Molly were very close, actually. Molly adored you as well. You should know that above all else. She loved all of her children fiercely, and she loved you like any one of her own. She was kind, and firm, and had a temper, and everyone loves her very much."

"Tense."

"No more than to be expected."

"No, I mean your tense keeps moving around."

"My…"

"Not like the army camp-out canvas things – the past, present, future things."

"Oh. Well, you see, Molly's alive, sort of, but she's not responsive at all. For the past fourteen years she's been – sort of asleep, in a special room at St. Mungo's, that's the wizarding hospital, and we haven't been able to rouse her. There's no pain or suffering as far as we can tell, and she's perfectly healthy, just not … here."

"What made her like that?"

"She made a sacrifice. She did a noble thing and put another person's life before hers. It was wartime."

"And their father?"

"You know as well as we do," he said. "He's your aunt."

I had virtually no experience with anything up until the time I started remembering things from day to day, so it is from subsequent experience that I speak when I say that sometimes no amount of drinking or bludgeoning one's self with a shovel will make certain things make sense. Though I might have tried to make either method work on this occasion. Fortunately, I had nothing to hand and so went on with our conversation. I clutched my head a little, shook it as well, but nothing worked. It continued having been said.

"Okay," I said, lying a bit. It wasn't. "Okay. Arthur is a man. I get that. I was a little slow to get that because I forgot stuff from day to day, and besides, you take people as they come, right? He says he's my aunt, he's my aunt. Only he's not really my aunt, he's a friend of my parents, who abducted me when I was four for reasons no one understands entirely. His wife is in a coma for some reason, he goes funny and eventually, though not right away, decides to grab me and disappear, leaving behind …"

"Seven," my father said gamely.

"…seven kids. Who you raised instead of raising me. He hides my whole history from me, day by day. But Arthur's not so good at magic, and eventually what he's done to make me forget who I am starts to fail, and I start to have a bit of a self to work with. What I find out about that self that doesn't even seem to be me, is that he can do things. Nothing weird, mind you, just popping around places, animating blankets and curtains and stopping things from falling and then blowing them up. She – he - …Arthur drags me to England by making me hold a pinwheel, drags me here with a darning egg, and drops me in here like a turd on a birthday cake and says, 'All this was yours. Deal with it.'"

"Err, the…"

"So the reason the Weasley kids have no dad is me. The reason I have had no parents is Arthur. And the only reason I haven't run out the door screaming is you and my mother." I took a deep breath.

"You should –"

"I mean, in spite of everything else, in spite of all of the other things I don't want to believe, or can't believe, or can't allow space in my head to even think about believing, I believe you, and her. I believe that magic must be real, I believe I got a little on me, and I believe that Arthur may be absolutely batshit crazy but he loves me and has cared for me in his own inexplicable and damaging way, and he had a reason for doing all of this, and I really want to know what that reason is."

I was breathing a little heavily. He waited for a moment, and when he saw that I was done, he held out his hand to count points.

"Arthur…man. Molly…coma. Seven siblings…check. Arthur funny, check. Abduction, check," he went on, his voice singsong, "memory charm, poor magic, wake up, blankets, things blowing up, pinwheel, darning egg? Darning egg, turd, cake, Arthur loves you, you believe us."

I was impressed. Clearly my mother married the right man.

He took a breath. "Now let me talk. You are in no way responsible for any of this. We don't know what happened to Arthur, and I imagine since there's no screeching or banging, your mother is making strides in the area of figuring that out. The Weasley kids are grown now, most of them are older than you – in point of fact, you played together when you were a child. Yes, it was hard for them when their father left, but they have managed to get this far because they are wonderful people and we love them as if they were our own. They are generous, kind and open-minded, and there is no possibility of their blaming you for any of this."

I should have bet money on it. The door banged open. There was even more red than last time. And chopsticks. Lots of chopsticks.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Things were coming at me a little quickly. Mum, Dad, those I liked. Magic, beautiful redheads, good as well. Cranky, muscular redheads, not so much. Right now there were an awful lot of angry men in front of me, crowded into the front of the room, wielding little black sticks. I felt like an orchestra in reverse, with seven conductors.

I was a little scared.

I was trying to think of what to do. I wasn't even used to having this many people around, if I thought about it. All I could remember at the moment, aside from a few hazy memories of crowded streets, was being in the kitchen of a Manhattan apartment with Arthur, just the two of us, and I had had really no retainable experience with any more than that. Retainable experience, a theme of my life. Oh, I'd done plenty of things, they just didn't count in any way because I could not remember any of them. I was feeling a little unprepared, and a little angry, and trying to come up with a strategy. Maybe I should…run? Hide? Duck? Beg?

Instead I said, "You look like a box of kitchen matches." There was a moment of silence while the faces moved from angry to confused.

"They don't know what those are," my father said. "Boys, what's this all about?"

"What does he know? Where has he been? Why is Dad…" The questions began flying all at once from all of them. My father silenced them with a shouted "Quiet!" but there were mumbles about a "bloody dress" and "lilac" before it subsided.

One of them, tall and with what looked like a tooth of some kind dangling from his earlobe, stepped forward. He looked a bit more calm than the others, and a little regretful, maybe, at having stormed in. "James, we have a right to know where he's been and what happened with our father."

"That's certainly true, Bill, but it's not as if your father was taken from you by H – him – he was taken from us by your father."

A broader one spoke up. "He was taken from us? That's H-"

"Yes, this is the boy you played with as a child, Charlie. This is my son. His name is Deasil."

There was a peculiar emphasis put on my name, as if they needed to be reminded.

"Deasil?" This was a shirty-looking young man a few years older than me. He appeared to be smelling something horrible that no one else could. I thought, well, that's a special gift. "Well, we clearly have no idea what has been happening while they were gone, but it can't have been very savory. And an American yet -"

"Percy, mind yourself," my father said softly. This appeared to carry weight, though Percy looked resentful.

"Easy, Perce," one of two identical brothers said in a low voice. "If anything needs finding out –"

"-we'll get it out of him," the other one interrupted. I had an image in my head of two glowing sparks in an orbit around each other, held together by unbreakable gravity, forming a single atom of mischief.

"Boys…"my father rumbled.

"Well, honestly! We haven't seen either of them in fourteen bloody years!" Charlie shouted. "We want to know why Dad's so bloody different and why he took Deasil or whatever, and why he LEFT US –"

I watched a movie one night, a few nights previous, starring a huge gorilla.

The reason I mention this is twofold. One is that the persistence of memory is a precious thing to me, even now. I remember the glow of the television in the dark living room, and the whisper of street noise and sirens that is the backdrop to all life in Manhattan, and also one scene in particular, of a forest of tall trees, and of something huge and powerful moving through them the tops swaying and boles shivering with impact and bending as this unseen creature forced its way towards an unwilling sacrifice. The second reason is that from back to front these men were swaying and bending and stumbling into each other as an irresistible force pushed them aside. In a moment they had all parted, some smarting a little, to reveal their sister.

I had only a moment to see her face, examining me briefly for obvious signs of damage (I supposed), before she turned her back on me to face them. Here is another thing about memory. From what one of my brighter friends says, there seems to be pleasure associated with recognition. Satisfaction, maybe, as in the connection of neurons that enable you to make sense of things; oh, so _that's_ why they call it a Harvey Wallbanger or a root canal or a Devil's Snare or something. Or relief, like when you're in a strange country and you don't speak or read the language and you find a chain coffee shop where everything's written in your language or you run into someone you haven't seen since high school who used to be a little annoying but has turned out to be witty, urbane and bilingual. Or maybe in the palace that history has built in our minds out of the lives of our ancestors, there are rooms where the need to survive, to persevere, has created a special joy in knowing and meeting-again that helps us to continue, that grounds us in now and shores us up for the future. Or I could be wrong. Anyway, seeing her again was maybe even better than seeing her the first time. My memory of her flowered and bloomed and gave me a gift I'd never had.

A past.

"I leave the house for an hour," she railed, "and all of you bloody cavemen scrape together one tiny wrong idea to share among you and start howling up here like a gang of monkeys. I'm surprised you didn't slip in your drool on the way up."

"Ginny, you don't under-"

"Don't tell me what I don't understand. This man has been through a great deal of shocks and you are not going to make things worse with your stupid questions. What on earth are you thinking? Nothing, that's what! Maybe you need a few wooden legs to keep you level-headed?"

I found my mind trying to make sense of what she said, I mean the visual aspect of making one's head level by adjusting the length of a leg, and sort of an image of thoughts or brains leaking out of one's ears if one weren't balanced, or …

"Out, the slavering lot of you, or you'll be clunking every other step!"

The two older ones appeared to consider it. The twins looked horrified, Ron looked mildly amused, and Percy opened his mouth to object, but as the chopstick flicked in his direction he cringed and took a step back.

"Come on, then," Ron said, "you don't want to test her, do you? Let's all have a seat down the kitchen and Lilymum will make us some tea –"

"No she bloody won't!" Ginny interrupted, getting her second wind, clearly. "If you think you can slope in to the kitchen and make her do anything for your lazy, sorry arses, you have another thing coming! She just delivered a baby and here you are roaring around the house like I don't know what…"

"Baboons?" I whispered.

She turned a look on me that did two things. It made me wish I hadn't opened my mouth, and it stirred my pot vigorously. I tried to look penitent, but that was spoiled by Ron's smirk and the twins' stunned expression. I felt like that had been the right thing somehow.

" – when what she needs is peace, and quiet!" This last had been shouted.

All of those boys knew better than to say a word. They should have known better than to laugh. They all, except for Percy, looked to be manfully struggling to control their grins as they all turned and headed through the door. My father went with them, eyeing Ginny with an expression I could not decipher. Bill was the last to leave, and he mildly said to her, "Leave us some, firefly," before closing the door.

The silence in the room was punctuated only by the sound of her breathing through her nose. I thought I'd sort of unobtrusively sit down and maybe assume the general color and shape of the furniture while she calmed herself.

I got a few seconds of that before she spun and glared at me. "And none of that!"

Apparently I _had_ blended in a little. I'm not sure what I was doing, but I cut it out.

"I want you to tell me," she said in a low voice, "why I just kept my brothers from pummeling you."

I thought for a moment about what had happened to them because of me and sighed, looking her straight in the eye. Not difficult if you don't mind staring at the sun. "Honestly I don't know. I might have done a … hurting spell or whatever if I'd been in their shoes."

"A 'hurting spell'."

"Look, I don't know what you do when you're magical and you get angry. I barely know what I would do. They're mad at me because I'm at the center of a huge pile of misery that's been visited on them, and you for that matter. For all I know you just wanted them out so you could have first crack at me."

She said, "Maybe I did, I haven't decided yet. Maybe I knew I could fix whatever I did to you, and I don't like cleaning up my brothers' messes. Or maybe you're my patient, sort of, and I'm supposed to protect you no matter what." She ran a hand through her hair. "Maybe you can tell me what on earth is going on and help me decide."

"Help you decide whether or not to attack me."

"Take it or leave it."

It was what was on the table before me, and it was dinner time. Time to eat it.

"Your dad has come back."

She stopped breathing.

He's not like he was when he left. He's gone through some changes. He needs our help. This is what went through my mind. Guess what – none of that came out.

"You remember that woman, downstairs?" Amazing I can walk with that lack of grace. Knuckle-dragger.

She said, "Does she know…"

"Umm, no that's not quite…look, no one really knows why, least of all me, but … okay. All I can tell you about the last fourteen years, and most of it is hearsay, is that that woman took care of me and raised me, and also cast memory charms, bad memory charms, on me every day so I wouldn't know who I was. She taught me most of what I know, which is not much, but I never came to any harm, or any further harm anyway. I don't always like her a lot, but I always like her a little, and I love her in any event –"

"Is there any time you can foresee sort of getting to the point?"

I'm trying to, you're just so beautiful. "I'm trying to. It's just very complicated and I don't know all of it." And I'm trying to break it to you gently. So maybe you won't hate me as well. "The thing is, she wasn't always…like she is. She had another life once, and then a horrible thing happened, and then no one knows why but she…she changed, and she decided that I needed protecting and … and kind of abducted me and took me away."

Her brow twisted exquisitely. The sympathy in her expression was like a bow on a string. At the moment I didn't feel like I deserved it, but it was not unwelcome. "Well -" she began, weighing her words. "She must have thought she had a good reason, and it was near a very bad time. Maybe she was traumatized by the war and sort of lost her way…"

"Yes, exactly!" Maybe this would sort itself. "She lost her way. She's never really seemed – well, all there. I mean, always a little distracted. She used to look, oh, behind me or around me when we talked sometimes, and of course she was trying to hide the magical nature of life from me and everyone else, and she had really, really hairy arms, -" what was I saying? "-and I thought maybe she was Mediterranean, except sometimes the hair wasn't black, and she had a bit of an Adam's Apple, and her voice was low, I mean low, what could I have possibly, I mean it's not like I knew many other people, or any, and so there wasn't any…" Thank goodness it began to slow down. "… frame of…reference…or something…you know?"

"And just what…"she said, slowly. "Just what does any of this have to do with my…"

Her eyes (brown, now, I saw brown) at first looked glassy, then it was much worse. Her entire being said to me, "Does this really have to be so? Does the world really have this to offer to me? Did I do anything at all to deserve this?"

She sat down on the edge of the bed I'd been lying in before. "That woman, who took you away."

"Yes."

'That _woman_."

"Yes."

"Is my dad."

"More or less."

She thought for a second, staring at her hands in her lap, wand forgotten. She was making sense of it.

She looked right at me. "He's alive. That's something I'd always wished for."

I felt a lump in my throat.

"My brothers are wrong to be mad at you. You were just a child. Likely they just want answers."

"They should have them. So should you."

"And you," she said quietly.

"Wooden leg?"

She laughed suddenly, the kind of laugh that made me wonder what time of day it was, but certain there was sunlight involved.

"What?" she said.

"Sorry," I said. "You threatened them with a wooden leg?"

"Yes, well," she said, a little flush on her cheeks. "It's something I came up with at the hospital. People would come in from Quidditch matches or something with broken limbs that were too damaged to just grow the bones back, and sometimes mistakes were being made because we were trying to act too quickly to save the limb, so one day I tried transfiguring the limb of a young woman into wood to suspend the damage, and sure enough it worked. It's not quite that simple, but what happens is that as long as the material something's transfigured into is organic, the connection with the body is not broken and it's not rejected. Doesn't even hurt, really. Just a sort of tingling sensation, until the problem can be determined and the limb can be healed and rejoined with the body. Sorry, that's more than you probably wanted to hear."

I must have been staring intently at her, because she looked down and blushed a little. I found my voice, though it was a little wobbly. "No, not at all. That's amazing." She smiled a little then. "I mean, I missed some of it. Not sure what Quidditch is. I can guess about transfiguring, though. Anyway, you must be brilliant."

She stayed red. I was utterly charmed. "Thanks for saying so," she said. "It's one of those simple ideas anyone could have come up with."

"But you did, and … you did. No one else." I was sounding a little vapid to myself, but I wanted her to hear me. It sounded fascinating to me.

"In any event," she said, shaking something off, "where have you been, and why did he take you away?"

I sighed. "He was never very clear. He was trying to protect me from something, and hiding me was the best way he could think of to do it. We've been in Manhattan. I can't tell you much about it, because I don't really remember it very well. Just a few things."

She looked a little sad.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's nothing," she said. "Just a lot to take in."

"I don't know much about people, but I don't believe you entirely."

She gave me a look that was a little fierce, but a little soft towards the end of it.

I said, "We're both going through a lot now. Maybe it's not my fault, but I still feel a little responsible…" A lot responsible. "And there's no reason to not be…"

"What?"

"Honest." I took a deep breath. I felt like something was taking shape around me as I spoke. "I promise I will always tell you what I'm thinking, even if it takes me a little while. We have something in common, and you've been helping me and I feel like you will continue to do so if you don't turn me into a toilet seat or something, and maybe I can help you. And your brothers. Things need to be sorted out."

There seemed to be a faint golden glow that was subsiding around her. I saw it mostly on her cheeks and in her eyes. I thought it must be my imagination. She wore a curious expression, her head tilted to one side as she regarded me before she made up her mind and spoke, though very softly.

"All right, then," she said.

We were still talking in low tones when my parents came in, about an hour later.

My dad was a little hesitant, and my mother a little … bemused, I guess.

"No transfigurations, then?" she asked Ginny.

"Not yet," she said.

"We thought you might want to come down for dinner," my father said. "Have a bite, and speak to our personal Unspeakable."

Ginny grinned. "Hermione's here? Good. We have some questions for her."

"Unspeakable?"

"Long story, Deasil, but there's lots of time to explain that." My mother was smiling at Ginny, a bit of sparkle in her eyes. "Ginny, I am so very grateful for you."

Ginny blushed again. "I'm happy to help."

"This goes beyond that," my mother said warmly, "you're a gift to all of us."

She ducked her head a little in response.

"Especially to me," I said.

Maybe a little loudly.

I got a few looks going down to dinner.

The dining room was very comfortable. There was a fire in the fireplace along one wall, and a long oak table was heaped up with food and lined with candles. At one side of the table there was a slender, bushy-haired woman standing with Ron, smiling warmly at him. He looked a little goofy smiling back. I felt like I had learned something. She heard us come in and picked me out of the group like the one thug in a garden-club lineup. A good bit of the warmth left her face, and I was sorry for that, as I was still unused to the thought that I would inspire other than at least evenness in someone. I saw, as she made for me in a businesslike fashion, that Ron looked from her to me and his eyebrows came up in what appeared to be sympathy, like the look Arthur gave me before he tried to wipe my memory the last time. I wondered briefly if Arthur had been giving me that look every time and it was only the one that didn't work that I remembered, but the woman had bustled around my parents and past a slightly annoyed Ginny and straight up to me. She looked as though she was unaccustomed to any sort of argument. She was going to get what she wanted from me, and no mistake.

"Mr. Potter, I'm Hermione Granger of the Department of excuse me?"

She said this last because I'd walked right past her as if she hadn't been there. There was food on the table and I wanted a lot of it, and I was unaccustomed to any sort of argument there. I sat down next to Ron and said softly, "Business before pleasure."

He snorted but managed to contain his laugh, for the sake of what I was fairly sure was his girlfriend.

Ginny found a seat across from me, her eyes full of merriment, and said, "How long has it been since you've eaten, Deasil?"

"Not sure," I said, eyeing a basket of bread. "I had a little breakfast about fourteen years ago, but since then I couldn't say."

My mother came forward and set a roll before me, saying, "Well, then, let's get you fed."

Her voice was soft and full of that "only people in the room" quality she had. I felt that in many ways, I was surely being fed. I'd been missing out on her kindness and warmth for so long, and I felt that I should be more angry about it, but that feeling was faint and far away. Maybe too much feeling in too short a time, but I couldn't really feel it. Just a hint of it, a remote memory.

"What did you call him?" Hermione asked, recovering and maybe a little indignant.

"His name," Ginny said. "Deasil."

"But…but that's preposterous! It's a travesty!"

"I don't think it's so bad," I mumbled through a mouthful of bread.

"Hermione," my mother began warningly, but she would not be deterred.

"Everyone knows who he is and he doesn't know his own name?"

"That's enough!" My father's voice was sharp. "He knows his name."

"But why does he think –"

Her mouth was moving, but no sound was leaving it. Ron had his chopstick pointed at her with a look of most profound regret. Resignedly he said, "You'll have to forgive Hermione. She means well, only sometimes she lets her curiosity get in the way of her respect for other human beings. She's truly brilliant, but sometimes you feel a bit of a specimen, d'you know what I mean?"

Her face was something to watch. Absolute fury, to embarrassment, to ire, then back around to embarrassment only slightly covered by self-righteous indignation.

"Ron has a point," my mother said reprovingly, and there was strength that brooked no foolishness in her tone. "You might consider thanking him for his tactfulness. And Deasil is our son, and this is our house, and you would do well to remember that."

Hermione gave a glance to Ron, and he waved his stick briefly at her. The first thing she said was, "You and I will talk later, Ronald."

"Why not now?" I said.

She looked at me blankly.

"I mean, if you're going to dress him down for saving you from verbal incontinence, why would you want to wait to do that until no one else is around? Unless you know you're wrong and wouldn't want anyone else to see you do it?"

I'm fairly certain my tone was gentle.

Her eyes widened into what looked like horror, and then shame filled her face like the tide coming in. I knew then that she was a driven woman but not a cruel woman, that her enthusiasm likely overwhelmed her empathy at first but not permanently. I wasn't sure how I knew, but I was absolutely positive of it.

"Has he met Luna?" someone said.

She managed to control herself and said, "You're right. I have no right to act this way. I'm only…it's just so fascinating and mysterious, and you've been gone so long and your parents must be beside themselves –"

"I know," I said just as gently as before. "It's a lot to ask of someone so curious and smart not to ask questions, but it seems that everyone's trying to limit my knowledge of what my name was before I was taken, and maybe they're right about that, even if I don't know why. I know I'm a Potter, but that's about it."

"We're sorry," my father began, but there's a reason to all of this…"

Ginny interrupted, "The short version is, we are who we answer to."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

What I like about dinner, if it's got people around you who wish you well, and good food and drink, is what I like about everything else.

The first family meal I'd ever had started out quietly, with Hermione subdued but a little flustered as I came up to her, put my hand on her shoulder, and pulled her gently towards the table. "I just met you," I said softly, trying to emulate my mother's tone. "I've known you only a little less than my parents."

"I know that," she said sadly, and I felt the edge of desperation in her tone. She thought she'd failed at something.

"So that makes you one of my oldest friends," I said.

Her eyes were wide, and to my surprise a film of water formed over them. I wondered if this was a spell or something, to protect them. By the way, I'd never seen this before, hence my unfamiliarity with the common act of eyes filling with tears.

"You're being better than you ought to," she said, a little briskly, but there wasn't anything angry about her. I steered her over by Ron, and they sat together. She didn't look at him, but she placed her hand on his (which seemed to be in easy reach) and gave it a squeeze. He appeared to be out of trouble.

"I don't think so," I said as more people came to the table. The twins sat together, looking a little sheepish, and the other young men were a little unreadable to me, as I hadn't much experience reading men's faces. Considering the insight into womens' faces that I thought I had, though one can't be sure, I felt a little disappointed that they were kind of inscrutable. But so be it.

Percy's face in the firelight was stone-stiff, and Bill and Charlie flanked him in their seats as if waiting for him to do something. Ron was availing himself of any food he could reach to heap on his plate. I expected to lose sight of him shortly. My mother was smirking at him as she came from what I discovered was the kitchen, bearing a platter of something steaming.

A little behind her, and a little timidly, came Arthur.

When it dawns on you that your aunt's a man, one of the first things you might think of is the wardrobe aspect. How the dresses don't hang right, or how the heels, though low, tend to look even more painful than normal, I mean all heels look a little painful to me but what do I know. How striking it is to see a bit of stubble on the chin over the apron, and, most curiously for me, that the stubble is not black, but red. And also that the aunt in question appears to have grown a few inches and is currently putting a bit of a strain on the dress, the apron and the shoes.

Arthur was carrying a dessert in, one that smelled amazing to me. I couldn't recall any desserts at home, and I was thinking I would have remembered this one.

Bill lost his unreadable expression and gained one of surprise, then of wistfulness.

"Smell that, Charlie…" he said softly.

"Yeah, I kind of remember," Charlie replied. He then turned his head and took in Arthur, and added quietly, "Bloody hell."

Percy looked at Arthur briefly and just shook his head before looking away.

The twins were silent.

Ron said, "Apron's a little tight on you, eh Dad?"

Hermione looked horrified and my father looked like he was stifling a laugh. My mother said, "It's one of mine, Ronald." He registered the full-length use of his name but didn't really understand why, it seemed.

"Yes…yes, well, I thought I'd make something from the old days, that you children might remember…" Arthur's voice was cracking a little, like an adolescent boy's. I stepped forward and took the plate from him and placed it on the table. Whatever it was, it was too hot to eat just now. It was steaming.

"Always one to rush dessert," Bill said.

Arthur gave him an affectionate look. "You remember."

"Never…never forgot about you," he said thickly before returning his gaze to the food in front of him. He started shoveling things onto his plate mechanically. Charlie stopped him before it got ridiculous.

Ginny put a hand on Arthur's arm and said, "Come sit by me." She guided him to a place more or less opposite Percy.

"Deasil," my mother said, "the boys have lost a little of their more primitive impulses, and may have a few things to say to you…"

Charlie spoke first. "Yeah, about that…we err…got a bit stirred up when we found out you were alive, and back – and we wanted answers, and well – blokes don't think so well in groups, I mean you've seen football matches – well, maybe you haven't, but anyway we were stupid, and…"

Bill spoke. "I remember you as a little boy."

There was a funny silence. I didn't quite know what to make of it.

"Was I a … good boy?"

It sounded silly coming out.

"Yeah," he said, "you were funny. You loved running around in the garden, and you had this little toy broom that – er, anyway," he amended as my dad gave a subtle shake of his head and my mother's eyebrows went up, "well, you did, and you were a natural on it. I didn't think they could go that fast," he said thoughtfully, "and you managed to get it to jump the rose bushes, how I'm not sure because those things aren't supposed to make it over a foot or so above the ground," here my dad was looking defeated and Bill's face took on a bit of a mischievous cast, "must have been a mistake at the factory, just tearing around at break – neck speed, narrowly missing trees and thorny bushes –"

"All right, Bill, stop taking the mickey," my mother said.

"No fun at all," he said, finally smiling fully. "You were good and kind, wanted to do what you wanted but you weren't bratty about it. You were a little mate. I used to watch you play with Ron and Ginny. You were a bit of a hugger…bit of a sweetheart, really."

Well, that was good to hear. It was a little hard to hear I'd played with these folks as kids. That would have been something to remember. And just like that, it was.

Leaves. Leafy crunches. My small feet, stomping through them, liking the sound, my impact on things, on the world. A coat, no, a robe, a cap on my head that slid down a lot, but mummy liked it on. Toward a leaf pile, running now, fast as I can, little strides but lots of them, sound of my high-pitched breath, Ronnie beside me as we reach it and fling our bodies onto it, followed by Ginny who lands partially on both of us, laughing, shrieks, throwing leaves in the air. There's a dog somewhere near, barking, a happy, safe sound. It's cool, some of the leaves are wet. At some point we rise out of the leaves, still laughing, and are floating through the air, my head upside down, towards my daddy and another man, both laughing at us. "Look what someone has done with Charlie's hard work," the man says, shaking his head. Good day.

It's what mummy calls a good day.

"What were bad days?" I asked. The table was deeper and wider. My hands looked alien on the table, like someone had come up behind me and put theirs down. People were further away. There was a bit of roaring in my ears. To the others I was probably wading in tapioca.

"Deasil," came a tinny voice I thought was my mother's, "you remember something."

"I … maybe. I didn't understand it at the time, I think. You said some days were good days, and some were bad days."

She was closer to me, and said softly, "I never said that to you, you must have overheard me. It wasn't about you, every day with you was fairly good."

"What was it about?"

In the ensuing silence I thought a little. Only enough to remind myself I hadn't left. It was like leaving a faucet trickling in winter to make sure the pipes didn't freeze. And I didn't really think _about_ anything. I just knew someone was doing it, and it was probably me.

"It was probably me," came Arthur's voice, slivered with tremolo. "I went… a little to and fro."

"Arthur," my mother said.

"No, it was true," he said insistently, in the way he had when he'd told me what he had to do with me. "Some days it was easy to be myself, and other days it was work, really hard work, because I was so split in two, you know, and I knew what I needed to do, I had to for the two of us…and we both knew it was for the best, even though when we … we left it was just me who knew."

"We all were broken by what happened, Arthur, " my mother said softly.

"How could Deasil have known it was for the best?" Ginny abruptly asked.

"Oh, but… but…he was so small, dear," Arthur replied, with a strange note of reproof in his voice. This was classic Arthur to me, answering a question with an unrelated answer, but I wondered if he'd been like that before. I was returning to the room a bit now.

Hermione spoke up. "When did you know what you had to do?"

Arthur said, "At the meeting."

"Meeting of…"

"Of the… it was a secret, very secret, only met in a pub, only men and only," his tremolo disappeared and his index finger came up, "those who knew about the prophecy."

Bit of a gasp around the room, from all of the older people present and Hermione.

"Why only men?" Hermione asked, recovering.

"Not that sort of pub," Arthur answered, his voice a little deeper.

"Who were these men?"

Arthur considered, absently scratching his stubble, which looked if anything a bit longer than it had a moment ago for some reason.

"Hard to say…maybe a charm…the leader was…well, he wasn't the leader, but he controlled the order, or took the…or…"

"Where did you meet?"

"Down the bark." This was said quickly, like a motor reflex, like a knee jerk.

"Down the…" I said.

"Bubble and Bark," Ron said. "It's a pub down the way a bit. You go through the – "

"Not right now," Hermione said.

"Hard to think of a better time," one of the twins muttered.

There had been a bit of a leaning-in during all of this. Bill said, "So there was a group in on this? Who? Why? Who was the leader?"

Arthur seemed to shrink somewhat. "His name was…was…Jeff."

"Jeff?" Bill said incredulously. "Who's got a bloody ringleader called 'Jeff'? 'How's our plan for world-domination going?' 'Oh, I don't know, let's ask _Jeff_.'"

"There's a Jeff down there, though," my father said thoughtfully.

"Who's that?" Bill asked.

"The barman. He's been there thirty years. At the very least, he might know something about all this."

"Excuse me," Hermione said, rising from the table, and she then walked to the fire, stoked it up with some sort of powder and stuck her head in. I lurched in my seat, but Ginny kept me from getting up. After a moment I realized Hermione wasn't killing herself for asking questions or needing a haircut and fancying a bit of a singe, and relaxed. What was I thinking? Heads in the fireplace, everyone. Whatever. She was talking to someone in what registered on me now as green flames. I wondered if it was a two-way fire or something. Well, it had to be, I mean if you can make a fire you can stick your head in and talk through, certainly you deserve the model that allows for a reply, otherwise you'd have to take it in turns, tossing powder in and bellowing at logs or something. Somehow this was irritating to me, this whole –

"Albus says he'll look into it right now." She emerged a little sooty but unburnt. "He suggests we have our dinner and he may have something for us after pudding."

Oh, good. There would be pudding!

Well, there was dessert, but it wasn't pudding. Also irksome to me. Not only did things float, rattle, and glow when they ought not, and not burn when they ought to, not that she ought to have been burned but I mean _really_, but here I was in a country where we spoke the same language but used different words. Somehow magic was a little easier to take than the linguistic differences.

Though I have to say, I was completely charmed by the accent. Isn't that what all Americans say? And why do so many say it in a way that makes the recipient feel like they aren't listening to what's said, and only thinking it's cute or something?

Ginny was waving her hand in front of my face, and I was obliged to tell her that I hadn't heard what she was saying, but I left out that it was because I'd been ensnared by her mellifluous lilt.

That sounds better, I hope. I am an utter jackass.

And the dessert was something called a treacle tart, which made me want to tell the tart and my mouth to get a room.

Ginny was waving her hand again, while I chewed slowly and guessed the waving would turn into something involving more contact if I didn't tune in. This time I apologized for only being able to handle one wonderful sensory experience at a time, which earned a laugh from the table at large and a slightly reddened countenance from her.

_Her_. In a sort of literary way, "her" could only mean her. In my then-current handwritten, furiously-scribbled-as-I-went life story, one could assume that unless otherwise noted, any unspecified "her" was Ginny. It's funny how the, let's see, second witch I met is the one I fixated upon, I mean, I can easily see why – she's beautiful and smart and funny and a redhead with a temper – but the first one was beautiful and smart and kind of funny too. Totally different. The first one I knew was a friend, I knew I had an affinity going with her, and it lasted about a minute because that was how long I saw her, but Ginny – well she made the drapes show off. You know? Maybe you don't. That wouldn't be weird if you didn't. What's _weird_ is, I don't know, everything that happens to me. I played with her when we were children, flash-forward 14 years, I'm googly-eyed. There was a big part of me that felt like this was too easy, too simple. That my small circle of acquaintances should probably expand before I decided whose picture went next to "woman" in my dictionary.

_Beautiful_ woman.

"What was it you were saying?"

"Is there anything that you wanted to ask us, the boys and me, anything you want to know?"

"Yes, can you pass the cream?"

She was frustrated, oh, yeah, she was irritated. She was also smiling.

Cream began to approach from the other side of the table. On its own, mind you. Ron's serviette, as I've found I must call them lest the twins have a field day with the word "napkin", arched its back, that is to say it made itself into a shape that had a back and then arched it, before scampering down the table and quivering in Ginny's lap. She squealed, but in delight. "That's amazing!" She grinned at me.

Hermione's eyes were big. "No wand…no training…just right out of your head… and with a character…how long do these last?"

"Um… not sure, a day or less –"

"A DAY or less?" she asked.

"Well, my blanket seemed to be … full of attitude for around twenty-four hours – it subsided when it was time to use it again."

"Deasil, at – at some point," she said, clearly trying to calm herself, "whenever you might feel up to it, I'd like to ask you if you wouldn't mind…"

"No problem, Hermione. I don't know if I can do it reliably, it's just been happening lately."

"Well, that's not surprising," she said. "A wizard usually matures around seventeen, and you've probably been a little pent-up due to your – well, to the memory charms keeping you from building up any magic."

That made sense. "Thanks for your insight."

She smiled, clearly pleased at the compliment. "Happy to help." Ginny was petting the napkin and Ron and the others were watching that with varying degrees of wonderment. To me it was a little silly and a little embarrassing. It was a little like accidentally breaking wind and having people think it was cute.

That's where my mind was when the fireplace flared up big and green and a man stepped out of it.

He wasn't tall, but he was imposing. There was a billowing thing happening with his grey robes. I have to say, it looked like a vanity option. He had long white hair and a white beard that was tucked into his clothing but that probably would have ended below his waist.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked in a way that made me think he knew he was but expected to be contradicted.

"Of course not, Albus," my mother said. "Can we get you something?"

"Thank you, no, I've just come from the Bubble and Bark, and – shall I say – their fish and chips are not currently welcoming any other visitors." He smiled.

"I see," she said.

His eyes cast around the room, passing over me and stopping on Arthur. "Arthur, my old friend, so good to see you after so long. It seems time has been kind to you in interesting ways."

"You could say that," he said, a little shyly, and I actually felt myself getting a little mad. Arthur was who he was, and he was being made to feel awkward by a man I hadn't met yet but was not liking so much right now. This was a little alien to me, and I didn't like feeling this way.

"That's not exactly…" I wasn't sure what it wasn't exactly, but it certainly wasn't.

"No, I suppose not," this man said smoothly, "It's just that I might have expected to say 'you've kept in shape' rather than 'you've certainly kept your figure.'"

Well, that wasn't popular with the Weasley kids.

Ginny was formulating something of a response, but it never made it out – he turned to me and said, "My apologies – Albus Dumbledore at your service."

I said, "Deasil Potter, so far."

He examined me before saying, "What part of this wonderful family are you from?"

"This part."

He became a little still. This was a disquieting effect, I have to say. It felt like the lights dimmed a little, though this time it didn't actually. Not sure what rules govern that sort of thing. He stopped the sort of hover-y aspect of his appearance and kick-started the weather-beaten-statue aspect.

"A cousin, then?"

"No, Lily and James are my parents."

His eyes had taken on a haunted look.

"Not adopted?"

"No," I said, getting a little irritated. "We're all very much alike."

"Forgive me," he said, and a burst of air struck my face, like a hair-dryer.

"Hey!" I said, swiping my hands in front of me, but to no avail.

He was now gaping at me, but he wasn't looking me in the eye. Just a little above.

All right, that was enough. My hand went down on the table, the wind stopped abruptly, and this Dumbledore person, and the table, took a step back from me.

"I am really," I said in a low tone I have come to know as my severely cranky voice, "really sick of people giving me that not-in-the-eyes look. I'm not big on intimidating Arthur, and the blowing-air-in-my-face thing has got to stop. What I want to know is: why do you think it's okay for you to be so pushy?"

"I…" He faltered, looking very surprised. Well, that ought to be good for his circulation, I thought.

"I…you have my apologies. Please forgive an old man's –"

"So you're an old man now? What were you when you came in here?"

Well, it sure got quiet.

My father's eyes seemed to twinkle a little.

"I apologize for casting unwelcome magic in your direction. It was presumptive of me, when I might as simply asked you to brush your hair from your forehead."

"What does my hair have to do with anything?"

"Not your hair," he said softly, "your mark."

"What mark?" I was getting very frustrated with this. I looked at Ginny, who was coming towards me, and tried to ask the question again with my expression.

Her hand was on my arm, and I wanted to be calm. She would help me.

"Deasil," she said, "Arthur's been casting a glamour charm on you to hide a feature on your face that would identify you to anyone. Maybe since she's always done it, you don't remember it, but she hasn't cast it since you've been here."

"Okay… what feature? Do I secretly have a big nose?"

"No," she said, smiling a little. She gave me a look that said, more humor later. I felt like the richest man in the world.

"You have a scar on your forehead."

"No I don't," I said.

"See for yourself," she said, as a mirror appeared in her hand. Not by magic, she apparently just had one. But before I would take it from her I brought my hand to my head. Under my fingers, a small ridge, rising from my skin, jagged and stiff. It didn't belong there, but it had always been there.

Ginny held the mirror for me. I got a good long look at it.

"Cool, " I said quietly. "I mean, who gets a lightning bolt?"

"This is not good," Dumbledore said. "Not good at all."

I said, "Does anyone invite you over twice?"


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Let me back up.

It seemed kind of fitting that I was returning to my parents, because a great part of the time lately, I'd been feeling like a child. New to walking, bad at talking, giant head, poor hand-to-eye-coordination, hungry all the time, kind of needy, and loving women a whole lot. That might also make me sound like a drunk. I think there are more similarities there than we acknowledge. For a child everything is new, you don't know what goes where, things hurt but you don't know why, and you fall down a lot. So that was me, talking with Ginny Weasley upstairs at my parents' house before dinner. A drunken child.

I'd been apparently successful at steering her away from turning me into something you wouldn't mind stepping on, at least for the moment, and this was good. I mean, you hope that no conversation you have with anyone, friendly or otherwise, meets its end with you having too many legs. I'd also managed not to drool, beat my chest, groom her or forage for grubs during our first few moments alone together, so the ape-suppression mechanisms appeared to be holding. But only just.

"So," I said conversationally, "what's been happening? Did I miss anything?"

She gave me a sidelong glance. We were seated at a small table of the kind I imagine you would find in the rooms of large old houses where there's so much space you've got to start adding tables and chairs or else it'll look like a showroom for your bed and you'll feel a little like the floor model. There was a bit of lacy stuff covering part of it, and a few books and a photo that moved in its frame were lazily spread out over its surface. I'd seen a moving photo in a store in Manhattan a few days before, so I wasn't going to let a little thing like that throw me. Even if it was of my mother, and even if she was blowing me kisses. Okay, hi, picture-of-my-mom, you look very nice, how do you turn it off, can you at least hold still.

"You clearly missed most of the whole 'magical community' bit," she said.

"Yeah, all of that," I said. "Arthur kept me in the dark about all of that. Is there…well, that's stupid."

"What?"

"Is there a … a book or a video or something that I can watch, to kind of, catch up?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "What's a video?"

Oh, yeah. Two-way street. "Well, it's, uh…" I looked around and my eyes fell on the moving photo of my mom. "It's like this," I said as I grabbed the picture and turned it towards her. The woman in the image was thrown from her feet, and got up looking a little irritated. I – well, I'd just get back to that. "Sorry, mum," I said. Ginny smirked. I went on, not wanting to lose momentum. "It's a moving picture with actors and sound and often explosions and driving very fast and giant gorillas. And it tells a story, though not always a good one, and some of them are funny, and some are sad, and some are – okay, I'm wandering."

She was trying not to laugh. "Like a movie, you mean."

Find dignity, D. "Y – yeah, like a movie."

"James took us to one once."

"Oh."

"It was lovely, if a bit unrealistic."

"Was it."

"Yeah. Not enough gorillas."

"I see."

"You're a little new to the movie thing yourself, I take it."

"I might be."

"Well, as far as I know there's nothing like that to get you going here."

"Ah."

"Suppose I tell you a few things, you tell me a few things."

"All right."

"Why's Dad in a dress?"

"Chabbpth."

"What?"

"That was actually me making a startled sound, not saying anything yet."

"I mean business, Deasil." And she did. I could tell that this was not the time for any foolishness on my part. Unfortunately, that's what my pistol was loaded with.

"Well, I didn't buy it for him or anything."

"I didn't –"

"He could have worn a nice pants-suit or a skirt. I don't dress the man."

"Right." She frowned, and I felt like – well, imagine if cheesecakes were sentient, and that they loved, I mean _loved _to be sliced, like that was the way they reproduced or something, and so that first slice was something excruciatingly wonderful to them, as a species or whatever you would call them, whatever it would take to have them far enough from us on the genetic tree and have it make sense, but anyway when her dark red brows moved and a crease appeared in her forehead, the creamy perfect skin now incorporating a shadow, well, I felt it move, and it cleaved me to the center of my being, and I wanted very much to find a pastry tool of some kind and serve her a big slice of me.

"What I mean to say," she said as a throw rug began to sidle up to her adoringly, "is what brought him to this? I mean why did he start dressing as a woman? Was it because he missed my mother, or was he retreating into another…stop that, you," she said as the rug began to get a little familiar. She pushed it away with her foot, looking puzzled. I for one was wanting to crawl under the table. I knew I'd made that happen, I knew it wasn't intentional, and I knew that given the source of the rug's personality it was fairly obvious that my thoughts weren't platonic. She looked at me sharply, realizing the first one. I was hoping I could tell her the second and completely avoid the third.

"Sorry, it just sort of happens," I said.

"Okay, then," she said, and she was being good about it a little, as the rug was having a problem taking "no" for an answer.

I said, "Give the woman some space," and after a moment's rebellious pause, the rug retreated to the edge of the bed, where it wrapped itself sulkily around one of the dark wooden legs and moped, again (as I find myself saying repeatedly) insofar as a rug can be said to mope.

"At least you can control it," she said.

"Does that really look like control?"

"No," she said, smiling, "it looks like negotiation. It's wonderful magic, though – I'm sure you'd be great with kids."

"I don't know any," I said.

She took that in. "I know a few now, but I grew up the youngest – I was always the baby in the family. Would have been nice to have a younger brother or sister – though I don't know I'd really wish that on anyone."

"You asked me a question," I said after a pause.

"Yes," she said, and focused her face on mine, a listening expression on her face.

It was quiet.

"Well?" she said finally.

"Well what?"

"Do you have an answer?"

"To…"

"To my question."

"Have I mentioned I have a memory problem?"

She took a deep breath. "You'd better remember I have a wand."

"A 'wand.'"

"This," she said, pointing it at me a little. I think my eyes widened.

"Like a magic wand."

"Not 'like'," she said.

"Now, you use that to – do magic?"

"Yes."

It was funny, it never dawned on me that those chopsticks were actually not chopsticks. For some reason I was aware of the proverbial magic wand but, having never seen one in action, had been unable to draw a link between the two. This is how memory works – you have an experience, you associate it with other experiences that have commonalities with it, and you are thus able to find your way back to your memory via a lattice-work, a web of strands that quiver and shake and help you locate your thought by leading you from node to node. This is a thing my mind does differently – I leap straight for something that I don't know I'm seeking and there it is. All intuition. And no common sense, which is why I thought "a group of men waving chopsticks at me" instead of "a group of magic guys waving wands at me". I know that may sound like hearing hoofbeats and thinking zebras instead of horses, to someone not in this world, but I'm trying to fix my perspective a little, and mostly these days, it's zebras. Or something even weirder.

"So why don't I use one?" I asked.

"That's a tough one. How about I answer that after you answer my question." She looked triumphant.

"Which was…"

Her lips parted, then closed. "oooOOOOOhhh," she growled. "I can't bloody remember."

"Dress. Why wear one?"

"Errr."

"No, I mean, why Arthur wore one. Them. Not why wear a…"

"Fine, get on with it," she said.

"He was hiding, I thought."

"From what?"

"Whoever it was that wanted to – 'get' me."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not really sure. He'd said a lot of things all at once, when I finally started to remember things. It all sounded a little unclear, like it was unclear to him. It was like he was at the end of a very long tether and it wasn't even tied to anything on the other end. He seemed lost." I felt for him, whether I wanted to or not. "We were both – lost together. I still find it really hard to get mad at him, because he clearly meant no harm and in some way, he was trying his best to save me."

She frowned again. I'll just keep my thoughts about it to myself.

She said,"Clear…as…mud."

"Well, maybe you'll do better than me. It's hard, you know, trying to explain something that to you seems strange and to me is just what's going on, and when everything you're trying to explain is just all completely new to me – of course everything's new to me. Why are you a midwife?"

She thought for a moment. "_Why_ am I one?"

"Yes. I mean, why that instead of a magic farmer or a magic lawyer or a magic singer or something?"

"You know, everything isn't called a 'magic' something. I mean we all are magical, so we don't differentiate."

"What's the other thing then?"

"Huh?"

"What's the thing that's other than normal to you called?"

She cocked her head at me. "I'm sorry, can we start over – oh! Right. Non-magical folk. Muggles."

"Is that a swear word?"

"'Muggles'?"

"Yeah."

"No, not at all." She looked confused.

"Oh, I thought you were saying it like, 'Oh, muggles, I left my shoe in the … something."

"No, it's not like that at all. Muggles are people who don't use magic."

"It kind of sounds like a slur."

"A…"

"Like it might be insulting to non-magical folks. Do you call them that to their faces, or do you wait until they're not around?"

She blushed faintly. "I never thought about it."

"In the non-magical world, there are lots of words like that. For instance –"

"That's quite all right, we don't use those."

"What's the difference?"

"I suppose there isn't any. Non-magical folk, then?"

"Okay. Not any non-magical folk around here, are there?"

"Well, no really. The community of witches and wizards is fairly insular – we keep ourselves separate because non-magical folk tend to be put off by the magic bit. I mean there are some people among us who are born unmagical, but that's a little different."

"Do you have a name for them?"

"Not one I'm going to mention, as I'm clearly being insulting to someone somewhere." She looked a little disgusted with herself.

"Oh."

"Can I have my go, then?" she asked.

"Your go?"

"My turn to ask a question. The more I answer the worse I appear, to you and me both."

"Okay, my turn to show my lack of knowledge."

Her eyes narrowed. "I wasn't lacking in knowledge just now."

"What? No, I mean, that's what I do on my turn. You're fine."

She appeared to be slightly mollified. "Sorry, Deasil. You ask very direct questions, and that's surely the shortest way to an answer, but sometimes it's a little… "

"I'm sorry about that. I'd probably be referring to previous conversations I'd had with people, and trying to do what worked then, but…you know."

"Yeah. It's all right. Was my dad … good to you?"

"Oh, well, yeah, I mean she, he looked after me, I was always well-fed and healthy, we didn't laugh a lot as far as I know but I was never unhappy, until the point where I started to remember things, and then I was kind of upset, but she, I mean he was so sorry, and I know he loved me dearly and it was really hard what he had to do. He gave up so much to do it, and I could really see that in the days before we came here. I'm sorry, this is coming out stupidly."

"No," she said, a little sadly. "I'm glad to know he was good to you.

"One question, though," she said.

"What?"

"How shall I say this…well, looking at him."

"Yeah."

Impatience won out over diplomacy. "There is no way you thought he was a woman."

"Why not?"

"Let's see. Low voice, broad shoulders, adam's-apple, hairy arms, narrow hips, can't walk in heels."

"He was…he was just my aunt. He was all I knew."

She looked a bit defeated by that. "You really take people as they are, don't you?"

"I thought he was Italian."

"Isn't that a little…"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"He was a woman, he had dark hair on his arms. What's wrong with that? You didn't know either," I added.

"I am seriously not going to open my mouth around you," she said, pursing her lips for emphasis. "Besides, I had maybe a couple of minutes, and you had…" She trailed off, thinking.

I was feeling a little pressure around me - the weight of otherness was getting a little oppressive. "I'm goofing this, aren't I. "

"What? No, of course not."

"Yes, I am. You need to know some things, and I'm kind of an unreliable witness."

"You don't have to feel bad for that. You're doing your best – you can't help what you can't remember. You can't help what happened to you."

"I'm sorry. I'm doing my best to put this together for you, and I know I'm not doing too well. I'm really trying here but it's not working."

Her hand was on mine.

"You are not here to do for me," she said gently, shaking her head, taking control. "I'm wrong to let you think that. I should be here to help you."

"But you have as much in this as I do."

"Right now, I'm a healer, and you need help, and I forgot that for a minute, but you helped me remember." She sat up straighter.

I said, "I thought you were the youngest child of seven whose father came back after fourteen years, wearing a dress, which was something he hadn't been doing before, and you needed answers to make sense of this. I think you need this - " I gestured between us "- as much as I do, and you want to ask another question or two."

She looked very surprised, then angry. "What makes you think you know what I want?"

"I just think I do," I said. "Don't be mad at me for that."

Her eyes were flashing. The rug went under the bed.

Abruptly she sighed and her shoulders relaxed. "I guess I wouldn't be so mad if you weren't completely right. I want to ask a thousand questions, but I'm a little sc- er, I don't know that I want to hear the answers, and a part of me wants to just be professional and handle it that way, but a part of me wants to just – what am I doing? Why am I telling you everything? I don't even know you!"

"We're talking," I said, trying to speak softly. "I'm listening to you, loud and silent."

"Loud and …"

This was hard for me, mostly because I didn't know what I was talking about. There was this pulling, at the back of my mind, this drawing of my thoughts and my awareness, towards the woman who sat in front of me. The funny part was, as I felt myself opening to this thought, I found that the effort I experienced was not in trying to reach for her, but in keeping myself in check.

The holding back.

"I hear you, inside and out," I said, my voice sounding like an old record in my ears. "When you talk to me, I hear your voice but there's this other…knowing that I'm getting from you."

"Are you reading my thoughts?" she asked in a low voice.

"I don't know what that means," I said, "but it doesn't feel like I'm taking anything from you – just that I'm not stopping it from coming in."

"Do you feel that from everyone?"

Yes. Say yes. Don't make her feel awkward.

"No," I said.

"Are you making me blab like an idiot?" she said, her voice rising.

"No! I don't – I mean I wouldn't, I don't even know how, I would never do that. I can't help it, I'm not making you blab like a – you're not blabbing like an idiot, you're telling me how you feel! It's you doing it," I finished, feeling very defensive.

Her breathing was rapid, her bosom rising and falling, liquid brown eyes gone almost opaque with anger at me. "Why would I tell you everything? Why would I do that?"

"Why are you asking _me_? I don't …_know… anything_! I'm completely useless!"

Okay. Tears. That was new for me. And this other thing. Agony. And failure. I was failing. None of this life belonged to me. I was from nowhere, in an alien place, and I wasn't fitting into this, there was something wrong with me, I'd been away too long and this place wasn't mine anymore. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be mine.

And my father had left when I was little, and when he came back he was strange and I had wanted so much to feel close to him but I couldn't, he was still far away from me, like I'd never had a father, and the memory I had nursed and fed until it didn't even resemble him was now being exposed for what it was, a lie I told myself, and it was one of so many lies that covered up what I really wanted, to have a normal mum and dad again, the dreams of a stupid little girl.

My eyes had been tightly shut – they flew open. She was holding my hands in hers, and tears were streaming down her cheeks, and my entire insides gave a great howl of despair to see her weep. Before I could think any more I was holding her in my arms.

There might have been a hurricane over our heads. It would not have mattered.

It's hard to describe what I was feeling. I'd hugged my dad and that's it for me, as far as contact went and as far as I could remember. So she was close, and warm, actually a little hot, and it was terrifying because I was afraid she would hate it or be mad at me or it would just be the wrong thing again, but she was crying and I knew, I heard her, and she needed this and I needed it too and I could not argue with that simple truth.

We had known each other, we were children together. Chances were that we'd hugged a long time ago. Yet another time when I wanted something to feel familiar but it just wasn't. Not to me. This was something I wished I had a right to, because it was really one of the best things imaginable, and I wanted to belong in it very much.

But it was _her. _ _She was so…– and I was only…_, my thought went. But her arms were around me, and she held me tightly, to the point of choking almost, and I could not be worthless, because she was holding me.

We rocked each other, and held on. The very last of it – the last flash of knowing – was her shame at wanting freedom from all of it, and beneath that, her will to not give up, that if it was wrong it would not be accepted, that a way would be found, that nothing would ever get the better of her. And I knew this was true about her. Nothing would get the better of her, ever again.

I spoke into her hair, which was redolent with a sweetness I could not place. "I like you."

She held me tighter. "I like you too."

We were quiet for a time.

I think it's the silence, that creates a vacuum around me, exerts an inexplicable pressure on me and begins to suck out things at random to fill the void. They always leave me via the mouth, and someone usually says "What?" I'm trying to get used to it.

"Ever again?"

"What?" Ten points to me.

"What got the better of you before?"

She shuddered against me. "It's hard to explain."

"You don't want to talk about it."

"Not really."

"I wonder if you have to."

"It would be brilliant if I never had to," she said, not letting me go yet. "People want to hear about it like it's a bloody tourist attraction. It's all very well when it happens to someone else – then it's bloody interesting, isn't it? But when it's you then there's always someone who wants to nod their head sympathetically and go on a little thrill ride with you and after a while every one starts to look like a vulture." She sighed. "It just doesn't seem to bring out the best in people."

I wanted to keep holding her forever. There was just not enough shelter that my arms could provide, not for her. I wanted to protect her, foolish and impossible as that felt at the moment, with all I had.

"I won't ask anything of you," I said. "What's yours is yours."

Another shuddering. The differentness of her, the textures and scent, her shape, bones, her hands, the warmth and humidity of her breath on my chest; wondering if this were something I would become used to, if this would be a regular part of my life, what that would be like, and hoping, hoping. Yes, another new thing, hope.

She pulled back and looked at me directly, right at me. Her eyes were a little red, but her gaze was clear.

"You don't know anything," she said.

I didn't know if I should smile at that or not. But I did. "No."

"Then you're perfect to tell this to."

"Right. Huh?"

"You'll just hear the story, won't you," she said, her gaze not wavering. She was holding it in place. Making her mind up. She seemed to be good at doing that. "It'll just be a story about me, and you'll accept it."

"What else would I do?"

"As I said. Perfect."

"Where do you start?"

"Let's see…"

She was a girl of eleven. It was to be her first year at school, and she was very excited. She was taken by my mother and father to Diagon Alley, a sort of mall for magical folks, so that she could get books and supplies, and a pet to take with her, as it was a boarding school. She'd chosen a white snowy owl, as apparently owls were used to carry messages over great distances. They didn't really require any training and could apparently understand speech perfectly. (I wondered if that were the case for all owls or if these were special magic owls, and if it were all owls then why didn't all of them gravitate towards magical folks unless some just liked the rustic life and didn't want to spend all of their time running errands, but I didn't want to ask questions yet.) She still had this owl, which had been named Hedwig by someone in the store. They had gotten through most of their shopping and were picking up textbooks at the bookstore – there was a large crowd there because one of the professors at the school was something of a celebrity. At some point my father had gotten into an argument with this "pompous rich arsehole" (her words) named Lucius Malfoy over some snide comments he'd made concerning the Weasley kids' parents getting what they deserved, and a few punches were thrown, mostly by my father, who apparently had a bit of a short fuse where that was concerned. During the struggle, a small book had found its way into Ginny's things. A diary.

She found it on the train to school, and had written her name in it, only to find the book writing back to her. She was a happy girl, mostly, but she'd always wanted for things to have been different with her family, and she'd had no one to talk to about that for a while, not since her brother Bill had left home. The words that appeared were comforting, encouraging even, and she'd readily unburdened herself to her invisible confidant. It was a very regular thing, a secret thing, and she treasured her secret, nursing it in a way. No one knew about it, no one would understand it, it was hers alone.

But some secrets, she thought now, are hurtful to keep, like a wound one tries to hide, and somehow even though she was pouring her heart out to a ready listener, she felt something wrong about it, and it was hard to say what that was, but she had times that she couldn't remember, things she could not account for, and the whisper in her ear promised not to tell anyone about these times, these doubts, and when things began to happen that were bad, the whisper became sly, and told her it knew she was doing these things, but it could help her, and all of the secrets she told to her diary were held up around her, glowing in her mind, and she knew she had somehow given all of herself away without knowing it, and the sly quality of the voice made her understand that she had entered a different world, far from home and help, but she had been bad, and she had nothing, nothing left of herself, so it was easy to take one step after another and wander down a hall, into a bathroom, hiss some forgotten words in a rasping tongue, and descend into a deeper darkness than she'd ever known.

The next thing she was aware of was cold air scraping her lungs and being shaken awake by her brother's friend Neville Longbottom. He, Ron and their friend Luna Lovegood had found her there, drained to the point of death by a spirit that had been placed in the diary by an evil young wizard years ago, waiting to be awakened by the right person. The spirit was a piece of his soul, and the diary was a thing called a horcrux, made to contain the fragment using the most horrible of all dark magic. The three young people had fought and killed a giant snake that had been roaming the school at the spirit's command, paralyzing students, including Hermione, since Ginny had unknowingly freed it from the chamber beneath. Luna had known the weaknesses of the snake, Ron had planned the method of its death, but it was Neville, a shy boy who stumbled in his speech and kept to himself mostly, who led them after her and killed the snake with a magic sword before waking her and guiding her over to its mouth, and helping her to pierce the diary with one of the snake's great fangs. He'd whispered to her after she'd sluggishly done this thing, "This was something you needed to do." She would always remember his horror at the giant corpse of the snake and the blood on his clothes, how the trauma had caught up with him and he'd cried openly when it was all over. He told this shivering girl full of self-revulsion that what had happened to her would have taken his life, that he would have folded in a second, but that she had held out against this insidious evil for a very long time, that it had taken over people older and wiser than she, but she'd fought it like a hero. These words of kindness were unbearable to her. He was very much a real hero, someone who does what must be done though the consequences are terrible and the toll is great.

It was funny, she said, how her friends found him so much more attractive afterwards, and some asked her why she hadn't just fallen completely in love with her rescuer, and she'd had to give it some thought, but in the end she'd realized that beyond what someone may do for you, and beyond gratitude and respect for the person who saves your life, that you love who you choose to love, and she had not chosen him for that. But she became his friend, and was close with him to this day.

"He did something to me," she said, meaning the spirit in the diary, "that I've never been able to forgive myself for. He convinced me to give up, he took me over. I hated myself for telling him everything, and for letting him turn me against myself, and because he had done this to me and I felt used, and invaded, and ruined. I still have my days where I remember that feeling of being dirty and worthless, and sometimes I feel it a little. But I won't let that end my life, and I won't let it keep me from living and doing what I have to."

"You don't give up on yourself," I said.

"I suppose not. I have friends, and my stupid brothers whom I love, and people that need me, and I can't just fold up into nothing because I'm having a bad day or I'm mad at myself. I keep moving, and after a while I forget about holding this over my head."

"Why can't you just forgive yourself for having been a girl who had something bad happen to her? It sounds like you did as well as or better than anyone could."

"You would have to be inside me to understand that. And maybe you could manage that, but maybe I don't really want you to understand. Maybe it's too ugly."

No part of you, I thought, could ever be ugly to me. "What if I don't go looking for it, but I promise you that if you want to tell me about it, that I will listen with everything I have?"

I know you would. I don't know how I know it, but I know you would be all right with it. You might help me make this better, we might banish this from my life, but that scares me a little, because it's my hurt, and I've had it for so long, I don't know what would remain if this were gone from me. Don't rush me.

That is what I felt from her, through the cracks, like a wind in my mind. All I could think was, never give up. Never give up.

"All right then," she said.

There was that glow again.

"Midwife." I said.

"Oh, yeah," she said. She looked amused.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"You're doing that on purpose," I said.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

When you're me, and I don't think that you are, unless I've forgotten writing this and am now reading it for the first time, you don't expect to run into anyone you know. Not because it's a big world, but because you don't know anyone. And haven't been anywhere but maybe two places. And don't get out much, as far as you can remember. I mean, someone would have to come to you. And what are the chances of that?

Someone had jammed a cup of tea into Dumbledore's hand-and-a-half as he sat at the table, shaking his head and mumbling to himself. Hermione was sitting next to him, looking horrified and taking notes. I assumed that in order to preserve the authentic tone of his words she would be using a crayon. Bits of it were intelligible to me, but not so that I could understand them, if that make any sense.

"They should all be gone … destroyed," was a little snippet I heard. "He was thought to be dead, the first one of them gone," was another. "How could it have been wrong all this time?" was yet another.

Hermione said, "What are you saying, Headmaster? They're all gone, we destroyed them all and then Neville killed him, it wasn't wrong!"

"But he was the first one, the one Tom never meant to make…"

"What…what do you mean, he was the first one? Why is this the first I'm hearing of this?" Her voice was increasing in volume and intensity. "Is this another thing you kept from all of us?" She stood up. "We all risked our lives…people died…and you still had to keep your secrets?"

"I…" The old man whispered, then stopped.

"'I'," my father said, loudly. "It's always centered on you, isn't it? Your beliefs, your plan for everyone, your grand gestures, your operatic failures, your bloody drama. Everyone's to be a pawn in your chess game. A foot soldier. Expendable, as long as your agenda is fulfilled."

"How can you say that, James?" Dumbledore said, his words almost slurred. "We have all sacrificed. I lost my hand to this horrible dark magic…"

"You went on your own," Hermione shrilled, "you told no one, you know we could have found a way to nullify the curse but you wanted to do it on your own!"

"Tom was my responsibility, he was my fault…" Dumbledore's voice was lowering, thickening.

"Then why would you presume to be the one best suited to fix it, if it's your fault he did what he did?" Ginny grated. "Why should anyone trust your judgment ever again?"

"You don't know what you're talking about." His voice was darker. The room felt a little warmer than it had a moment before. I didn't like that much. Even though I didn't know what anyone was talking about myself.

"I haven't been proven so wrong before, Headmaster," she returned, and I was fairly sure that if there were any rugs in the room, they'd have joined the one upstairs. "Who are you to tell me what I know? I may not be a famous, powerful wizard, but with my meager skills and only my little friends from school to help, I was able to find three of those ugly things and destroy them." Her viciously red hair. Her lips firm and her brows knitted. She was a lightning bolt, she was iron.

I was wondering why they'd given him such hot tea. His teacup was almost bubbling.

Oh.

"Hey, cut that out," I said.

His gaze flicked on me, like I'd awakened him suddenly. He sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, then absently picked up his cup.

"You are not seeing me at my best," he said in a subdued tone. Before I could warn him, he took a sip and immediately sprayed it on the table.

"You have to watch that," I said.

He gave a weak chuckle as he cleaned up his mess by waving his wand. "Ginevra, you have a point. No one does more damage than the person who believes he can do no wrong."

"It must be nice to feel that way, every once in a while," came a voice from the door. "It sounds very liberating." Most of us turned, and there stood a blonde woman, removing her outer robes.

"Oh, Deasil," Ginny began, "This is Luna Lovegood. Luna, this is…"

"We've met," I said. What are the chances.

"You have not!" Hermione said. She seemed a little irritated.

"Yes, we met in Manhattan at the Portkey office," she said.

Ginny was fresh from being angry, but she still had a smile available. "Got him ready for us, did you," she said wryly.

"Oh, no, he's like that all on his own," she said fondly, and she came up to me and gave me a peck on the cheek, like a hummingbird sipping rainwater. "Are things any more sensible?" she asked me.

"Tolerably," I said. "Did you find what you were after?"

"Well, it's curious," she said, and I thought, what she thinks is curious will surely confound everyone else in the room. "I had a bit of a tour through the sewers of New York City, it's a hotbed of cryptomagical life, you know, but a few hours into it I realized that something much more interesting was doubtless happening over here, so I returned immediately. I haven't missed anything, have I?"

"Maybe nothing so engaging as a sewer, but often twice as fragrant," I said. The twins snickered. "Oh, and I love my family, and I think the Weasleys are good folks even though some of them want to poke me with – sorry, that's right, they want to 'hex' me until I make sense of all of this for them, and also Arthur's a man, which is probably not news to you, and this guy –" I gestured to Dumbledore " –is realizing how many mistakes he's made although I don't really understand a word of it, and I really like Ginny."

Ron's head came up abruptly, followed by Charlie's and Bill's. It reminded me of a nature program I'd watched before the (apparently not typical) gorilla movie, with a large number of hole-dwelling creatures that stood on their hind legs when they thought a predator was coming.

Luna said, "I imagine that things will seem like that for a while, coming at you all at once, but almost everyone wants you here. James and Lily become all tender when they look at you. I watched them do it just now. And the boys think you're funny, except Percy, even though they're wondering about you and their sister. I think that even the Headmaster is a little glad to see you, even though he knows now that he's been wrong all this time and all that we fought to destroy is still with us."

Dumbledore winced a little, then went back to cooling his tea down. Ginny was looking back and forth at each of us and grinning. Then she frowned.

"Okay, so – wrong about what?" I said, clapping my hands together.

My mother came over to me. "There's more to tell you about, darling. If you're up to it, we can continue filling you in, but it won't be easy … for any of us," she added with a look around at the Weasleys. "If any of you don't want to revisit this…"

"It's all right by me," Bill said. "He needs to know, and I want to be here." Charlie and the others nodded, all but Percy, who kept his head down.

"Pillock", Ginny said under her breath.

"I heard that," Percy said morosely.

"Do you want to hear a few other things?" she said a bit more loudly.

"Ginny," Ron said, "There'll be time for that later."

I thought about how that wasn't a reprimand. It was more like a promise. They got along. I thought that Ron was probably a good brother.

"Arthur?" My mother asked, turning to look at him.

He fiddled with his shirtsleeve and asked tremulously, "Are you sure he needs to hear about this? The poor dear…"

"I think it is important for Deasil to understand our lives, and all of this. Why he was gone," she said with a subtle emphasis Arthur didn't miss, "and why he's here." He nodded his head and clasped his hands together on the table.

"Okay," my mother said, and she sat down, motioning me to as well. Luna perched on the knee of one of the twins.

She said, "Molly Weasley…that's the children's mother, and Arthur's wife – we were very close. She'd already had Bill, Charlie, Percy and the twins when we met – she was a very loving and strong woman who adored her children and others as well. I hope I learned something from her about how to be a good mother."

Arthur patted her hand unexpectedly. "The children all love you," he said. "You've done so very wonderfully with them."

"Thank you – Arthur," she said, a little flustered. "I love them as well.

"Some years ago an evil wizard, a dark wizard, began to come to power. He was extraordinarily skilled with dark magic, and he also gathered a great deal of support from wizards who agreed with his ideology, which essentially boils down to a warped belief that wizards and witches who had never intermarried with non-magical people were genetically superior. It's ironic, because he himself had a non-magical father, and indeed most of us are intermarried or from non-magical families…but he hated the man, and I suppose it's not surprising that that would carry over into his prejudice."

"So he felt that his followers were superior to him?"

She gave me a bemused look. "Probably not. Though he did have contempt for pretty much all of them. In any event, when things started getting worse, and he began killing people who didn't support his views, a number of people got together and formed a resistance, called the Order of the Phoenix. Together we fought this wizard on many –"

"You can say his name," Ginny interrupted, "You fought him three times and survived, remember?"

"Ginny…"my father said.

"No, she promised me," Ginny said firmly. "If I was possessed by that bastard and I can say his name, you ought to be able to. We had…a _deal_", she added, in a low voice.

"She's right," my mother said, "I'm being foolish. His name was Tom Riddle, but he called himself Lord Voldemort."

"And people actually went along with that?" I asked.

"What?" Ten points.

"Some guy who hates himself gets together a gang of followers who by his rules are better than he is, and he says, 'Hey guys, I know my name's Tom, and that's who my mail's addressed to and the phone bill's in that name, but it lacks a certain… pizzazz, I don't know, so can you all just sort of call me 'Lord' for a while? Sort of a boost in the old ego department. Oh, Lord what? Well, let's see, what sounds evil …"

Bill seemed amused. The older people in the room, however, and I include Hermione as she is often old beyond her years, just stared at me like a bat had crawled out of my nose. It got a little quiet.

"What?" I said. Ten points to the other team. "Is there a problem saying this guy's made-up name? Okay, let's call him Tom."

It wasn't getting any better.

"Oh. You said he killed people."

"Yes, he did," my mother said softly. "It's hard for us to be flippant about it when we lost so much."

"We lost so much already, but we didn't lose everything," Bill said. "Whenever his name comes up – or rather doesn't even come up, but sends its bloody representative - everyone goes back to how it was, heads down and fearful, and I hate it. I hate seeing you all like that. Even though he's dead you're still acting like he's right around the corner. All of us, when it was over, we called him every name you can imagine and a few that only Fred and George could come up with. We danced on his grave, you might say. And if he walked in here right now I'd still call him a twisted, manky old bastard. And not the Bastard-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Tom. Tom the bastard. Tom the shit who was knocked tits-up by Neville."

"William Weasley," Arthur said faintly. "Language."

Luna turned and regarded Arthur, her eyes luminous.

"Bill's speaking for a lot of us, " Charlie said, and I felt them aligning, the family strength, and it was something I admired and wanted. "The man was a terrorist, isn't that what they call them, Deasil?" I shrugged, feeling slightly stupid. "Anyway, he used fear at every opportunity to bend people to his will, and he's dead and gone now, and still –"

Dumbledore spoke. "He was dead, but he's not gone."

"What the hell do you mean by that?" Charlie barked.

"He's right," Hermione said, at the edge of tears. "We need to let Lily finish."

My mother took a deep breath. "Thank you, Hermione. Tom had a special hatred for anyone of a purely magical heritage who didn't agree with him – he couldn't imagine it, couldn't accept it. So many people were attacked and killed, or made to do his bidding through torture, blackmail or the use of an illegal spell known as the Imperius Curse, which forces a person to do someone else's bidding. We began to fight back. His followers began wearing black robes and masks and the attacks became more and more horrible. They killed entire families," she said, now almost whispering. "We knew that we and the Weasleys were on the list of targets and we prepared as best we could.

"The first time Tom came with a group of his followers, but we were ready – he was not prepared for resistance. Your father and I, the Weasleys, Remus Lupin and Alice and Frank Longbottom were all waiting. We incapacitated all of the Death Eaters before Tom himself stepped in."

I almost hated asking it. "Did he name them?"

"Deasil, you have to stay with this."

"But why eaters of death, did they want to…live on it?"

"It's a fair question," Dumbledore said. "Tom feared death, as much as he feared anything. I believe that his name for his followers was a way for him to feel like he was conquering death. It was certainly his overriding obsession."

"Sounds like he just made a pack of worse monsters to attack the things he was afraid of," I said.

"To be sure," Dumbledore said. "Lily?"

I loved her name. I was sorry she had to stir all of this up, and was thinking that having no memory was better in some ways than having a head full of bad ones.

"He fought us and lost that day – we were able to fend him off, but barely. He showed us what he believed power to be before he left, though, by killing the Death Eaters who'd failed him, killing them without a second thought. We were to face him twice more. Once the Longbottoms were with us, and the next time – they'd already been – " She stopped.

My father said, "They'd been tortured into insanity by some of his followers."

"That's horrible," I said simply. In this case, "simply" should be read as "stupidly" and perhaps "inadequately". Words are sometimes useless, not as good as silence.

"They were good friends, and they were faithful to us until the end," he said.

"So…they tortured them because why?"

"The Longbottoms had information they wanted."

I was beginning to feel like everyone was skirting around things, and wondering why.

"Mum…Dad… I want you to assume that I'll keep asking questions until you finally tell me what's going on. I want you to maybe imagine you have already told me everything, and that I have asked you for a recap. Can you just…say whatever it is and get on with it?"

"I'm sorry, Deasil," my father said. "This is hard for us, but we reckon it'll be hardest on you."

"Compared to what?"

He gave me a look of what I think was sympathy, mixed with resignation. The sympathy was the worst part. He knew this was going to hurt but he had to do it. That was a little scary to me at that moment. "Right. The Longbottoms knew where we were, and consequently where you were."

"What does it matter where I was?"

"It has to do with a prophecy that was made before you were born. The prophecy said that a child would be born who had the power to vanquish Tom, and identified the child as one of two possible people – you or Neville Longbottom. Tom decided it was you and made it his mission to find you – and kill you."

"Uh…uh…oh, what the hell, go on," I said, trying to sound game.

"We don't know why he chose you," my mother said, "but we know that he was wrong. As it turned out, it was Neville that would kill him, not you."

Arthur's head was in his hands.

"But Tom believed it, and we'd found out about his intent from a spy we had in his midst, so we invoked a charm, the Fidelius charm, to hide you from him. Essentially that's like telling a friend a secret, that then makes it impossible for anyone else to know the secret. Our secret was our house in Godric's Hollow, where we were hiding with you. The only people who knew where it was after we cast the charm were us, Arthur and Molly Weasley, and our friends Peter Pettigrew and … Sirius Black. Oh, Merlin, James." My mother looked horrified.

"In good time, Lil," my father said tensely, glancing at Dumbledore.

She sighed and I took her hand, feeling very sorry for her at the moment. I looked her right in the eye and tried to appear solid, unwavering and ready. Okay, I was new to acting. Maybe it didn't work, but the thought was there.

She returned my gaze for a few seconds, then squeezed my hand. "Arthur, was he always this sweet?"

"Always," Arthur said.

I didn't have any room in my head for that, and spoke to my mother. "So I was hiding with you…"

"Yes, up until one night, October thirty-first, when we were – were drawn away from the house – Peter said he had to tell us something about Sirius, and so we left you with Molly…" Her eyes were filling up and I knew what it was this time. "Tom…he came into the house like there was nothing guarding it, and went upstairs to find you in your crib, and Molly standing between you and him." The room was full of the sound of jagged breaths, with Ginny loudest in my ear. "He went to cast a killing curse at you, and she threw herself in front of it. It struck her head, and she must have fallen to the floor right there."

No one spoke for a moment.

"Then…"she spoke again. "He turned his wand on you. None of us knows what happened next, but somehow the spell didn't … it backfired on him. You survived, but he was killed instantly. We found … remnants of his body near Molly's, and you were holding the edge of your crib and screaming. You had a wound on your forehead, and that's what gave you your scar."

I had to have a moment to think, a moment to let all of this sink in, a moment to feel the weight of what they'd told me and find my place in all of it.

I didn't take that moment. "Neville Longbottom's parents... are insane now, because they were trying to protect me. The Weasley family... are without their mother, because she was trying to protect me. Arthur abducted me and kept me hidden for fourteen years because he was trying to protect me. And now you're saying…that this is all because someone misinterpreted a fortuneteller."

Ginny's face was white. I couldn't stand to look at her. Maybe it wasn't my fault, but it was because of me. Now here was a distinction I could wallow in to distraction. I was wondering why I'd been brought back into this life, just so I could take responsibility for everyone's pain and suffering.

But wait a minute. There was something worse about all this than my being the reason behind some of this. It was that it was all a mistake. This homicidal bigot had decided that the world revolved around a fortune cookie and then _misread _it. This was all pointless. It felt like I'd maybe had a destiny, once, but it had been cancelled. Everyone showed up bright and early, took their places and waited around for the show to start, but it didn't happen because we were in the wrong theater entirely. The world wilted around me, the things I wanted, my parents, this beautiful woman whose life always tilted towards loss and hurt because of some stupid mistake that stuck to me, cloyingly, like a dank scent that I could not wash off.

"Useless," was all that I could manage.

"That depends," came the voice I'd least expected to hear.

Turning my head took everything I had. Where I might have expected a wand or a fist approaching my face, there was something far more piercing.

Her eyes.

You think I hate you, that I hold you responsible. Maybe a part of me wants to, but it's not the best part. I'm trying to see my mother's intent, her love, when I see you. Her sacrifice, her will. And everything else I see when I look at you. And this is your life. You decide if it's useless or not. No one can tell you. Now don't fight me, you git.

How one can go from being unable to look at someone to being unable to stop, and so rapidly, was beyond me. A torrent of words and wishes roiled up within me, how do I thank you, can I have another hug, can we get rid of these people now and get back to us because I know we can make sense of this together.

"Git?" I asked.

"Foolish person," she said.

That surely seemed a little weird to everyone else in the room.

Ron said, "If you two are done calling each other names…"

We both laughed. It seemed wrong, but there was nothing we could have done to stop it. A strange sound in this somber room, kind of like when you're at a dinner party and it's quiet and you're wondering why it's so quiet and formal-seeming when no one said anything about it being like that before you came and so you're wondering if someone died and you're a little unnerved by the lack of conversation and are trying to be quiet too and then your fork rakes across the plate and it's this bright flash of color in the dimness and everyone looks at you like, "How could you," and it was just a scrape, not like you had a fit of Tourette's and shouted an obscenity about the hostess or anything, but clearly my mother was taken aback.

I'm not sure why, but I didn't want to explain it.

"But it wasn't useless!" Thanks, Arthur, for changing the subject. "I did what I was supposed to do, and he was safe!" He rose and left the room suddenly. We were left with the sound of him banging around in the kitchen.

Dumbledore spoke. "Arthur had his very good reasons for doing what he did. Unfortunately, he too was inclined to find his own meaning in things, even if it was apparently not in his power to avoid doing so. Jeff was very reluctant to part with this, but when I assured him there would be no repercussions for his involvement, he changed his mind." He had drawn from his robes a small vial full of a silvery substance. "This may explain some of Arthur's actions of fourteen years ago – though it cannot account for all of it."

"Will it hurt?" I asked. This seemed to be a sensible question to ask of strange men holding vials and saying they'll solve your problems.

"No," he said.

"Well then, bottoms up."

"Ah…no, we don't drink it."

"Is it topical?"

He looked as if he wanted to make a joke, but was controlling the urge. "No. This is a memory. We can all view it together, if all are willing."

A murmur of agreement came from everyone except Percy. Dumbledore waved his wand and a large ornate bowl appeared on the table. He said, "Rather than enter the memory, I thought we might view it projected from the Pensieve itself."

"I imagine that's best," Lily said. "Oh, just a moment, let me see to the baby." He'd apparently been asleep in a bassinet in the corner and had awakened, a little fussy. She announced that he was hungry and that she'd be back in a moment, and that we should go on without her.

My father caught my eye and whispered to me, "She may have had enough for right now."

I nodded and turned back to the bowl. Dumbledore said, "As closely as I can determine, this memory is from the same night that Tom gave H – Deasil his scar."

"It's silent," my father muttered to my amusement as Dumbledore dimmed the lights with a wave (I noticed he didn't seem to ever say anything, like abracadabra, to make anything happen. Not that I did either) and poured the little vial's contents into the center of the bowl. It began to swirl and foam, and a silvery mist rose up from it, rising to about the height of a child. Looking at the mist made me think of seeing the clouds overhead on the way to the Potter house - how if you look at something long enough all kinds of things appear in it, and in this case it was kind of intense, I could almost make out a figure moving, several figures, that one looked like a man standing, and then I realized I was really seeing this, a room, a bar, and several men around a table, and a man at the bar, wiping a glass with his apron. The mist cleared mostly – and the figures were three-dimensional, faintly colored and very lifelike, and what the hell, this was real, it had happened, it was a memory.

The men around the table were drunk, and one of them seemed to be holding court. I leaned in to hear him but couldn't make anything out. Abruptly his voice jumped out at me and we all started.

"Sorry, it was turned down," Dumbledore said.

"It was the real thing," the man was saying, "I swear, they were as close to me as you. Her voice went all funny and she started banging on about one with the power…"

"Why's it always you that finds these things out then, eh?" One of his companions was skeptical, but in a joking manner. "Some barmy seer gets bitten by the scrying bug and you just happen to be there to take it all in?"

"These things are out there for them's … for those who listen to…hear 'em. D'you know what I mean?"

"I know someone was there on half-price pint night," another man chuckled, garnering a round of laughter from the table.

"You … you lot know, that of all of us, I … hold my liquor best out of all of you." This last emphasized by a gesture with his glass, which slopped on the table, to the great amusement of his audience. No one seemed to notice the door to the pub opening behind them, revealing a man I thought I recognized, but wasn't sure. He had red hair and a vacant look on his face, but I would almost swear…

It was Arthur.

I'd never seen him this way, undisguised. He was of medium height, round-shouldered, with a countenance that, had it not been looking a bit empty, might have been kind. It was very strange seeing him with short red hair and manly arms, and he looked a little weather-beaten. His hair was a little messy, and he appeared to have a faint burn mark on his head. He wandered into the room, stumbled into a chair and sat down, looking bewildered.

Apparently he'd been quiet enough that the others hadn't noticed him.

"'f you'd seen her, you'd know. She stiffened up, and her eyes – " he gesticulated to illustrate "-rolled all up in her head, you see, and her voice were all deep and raspy, and she out and said it, plain as could be, so anyone could hear it."

"So why didn't anyone else hear it, then?" one of them said.

"Ah, but that's the point, innit?" he said, his voice dropping as close to a conspiratorial tone as he could drunkenly manage. "Someone did. It was Dumbledore."

Why was it that right at the center of all of the mess of my life … I just _met _this man, and here I found he'd had his fingers in it from the beginning.

"_The_ Dumbledore?"

"The same. He was sitting with her, right, when she said the whole thing. Even he looked surprised, and that…is saying something."

The memory Arthur was sitting perfectly still, a curious look on his face. He would periodically look at his arms and hands with puzzlement, then seem to sort of forget about it and go back to a vacant expression. In fact, this went on all the time that this fellow was talking. This was the conspiracy? This was the secret society, the think tank that spawned history. I felt a mild headache coming on.

"Well, let's hear it, then," one of them said.

"Right then. 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Errr… Born to those who have thrice defiled him, born in the, err, seventh month and that ... And the Dark Lord marks him as his equal, right, but he will have some power the Dark Lord doesn't ... And, and err, one must die at the hand of the other because either one can live or... Or no one survives ... Err, the one with the power to, you know, vanish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

The men around the table had become aware of Arthur standing up unsteadily during the recitation, and had become fascinated as he recited the last line of the prophecy, with a few differences, along with the man who was standing.

The standing man lurched around and took Arthur in. He clearly thought he'd found an ally to lend some credibility to his tale. "Yeah, mate, you know, you know it's true, yeah?"

"True," Arthur said, and I heard his natural voice clearly for the first time, though it was dull, like a bad copy of the standing man's. "A boy … I know this boy."

The man spun back around to face his audience, perhaps a little too fast because he lost his balance for a moment. "See? I… I bloody told you didn't I? What? Come again?" he said, spinning back to Arthur. "Did you say you know the boy?"

"I know the boy?" Arthur replied. He was not quite focused on the man in front of him. "The son of … friends of ours…"

"Well!" the man said loudly. Then "Well." He clearly was not expecting this level of corroboration.

"Have to help him." Arthur's voice was just at the edge of clear.

This went over like a lead balloon. In my relatively brief life that I can remember, I've managed to figure out that most people are all talk.

"Well, we…we all…want to help, don't we."

"Course we do," one of the others said to Arthur, not sounding at all sincere. "But, err…maybe since you _know_ him, maybe you should be the one to, err …"

"Save him," the standing man said. Arthur's eyes seemed to focus for a moment.

"Save him," Arthur repeated. I was beginning to wonder how drunk these men were, that they couldn't see something was wrong with Arthur.

"Yeah, you know," the insincere one said, beginning to warm to an idea in his head, apparently happy to be involved in something even if he didn't understand what it was. "Maybe he needs to go into hiding or summat. Somewhere far away, you know."

"Hey, how about New York? I've always fancied a trip to New York."

I hated this.

"Right then, New York it is, and you take him there, and then… then what?"

"Have to change his name, don't you."

"Hard to hide otherwise," Insincere said. The man to his left drunkenly swayed against him, and he shoved him away, saying, "Keep clear, you bastard."

"And a bit of a disguise, yeah?"

"I'll… I'll take him to New York," Arthur said, his voice mimicking their tone, though stiffly, as if he didn't understand how inflection worked.

I really hated this.

"We'll all go, right?" Insincere said. "Sag off work, right?"

"Well, I mean…" The third man, who'd been quiet up until now but for laughing, had his turn at Arthur. "We'll, we'll be along, but we'll be invisible, right, we'll be right there all the time, though you won't see us or anything, we'll be like, just over the shoulder…" A fresh round of snickering from Insincere.

"Over the shoulder, yes," Arthur said.

"And what else, oh, he would need to –"

"Oi mate," the standing man said, trying to regain the floor, "d'you know only yesterday –"

"Forget bloody yesterday," Insincere cut in – they were on a roll.

"I wouldn't mind forgetting what happened last night, that would be all right," said the third man, almost but not quite drowning out Arthur's voice.

"Forget yesterday," he said.

There went my life.

Ginny gasped next to me, and her hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed, very hard.

"Right," Insincere said, "but what if, you know, what if he isn't, you know, the one, and it's some… some other bloke?"

"Well then," the standing man said, trying to at least attain the spirit of the gathering, "at least he'd be safe, and could come back when the … the time is right."

"All right, you lot," Jeff said disgustedly from across the bar - it was late in the evening and last call. "You and your master plans to save the world; d'you think you might wait around maybe a few more bloody years before making a move? Honestly. Like watching grass grow. Orders!"

"Orders," Arthur said, and it made my skin prickle. Now there was a horrible clarity in his voice.

"Here, you've had enough – you got enough wherever you came from, didn't you," Jeff said to him briskly.

"We…we did," Arthur said, getting to his feet.

"Go on then, doesn't some one need you somewhere?"

"Yes, he does." The expression on Arthur's face took me by surprise, but told me everything.

He was crying.

He didn't want this any more than we did.

The figures became blurry, then dissipated. I closed my eyes and focused on the hand on my shoulder. A solid hand, the contact undeniable, real. No one could say it wasn't true or that it had happened for the wrong reason or that she was only balancing so she could pull her shoe on. Whatever had happened before this, however maddening and pointless and accidental, was past, and I wanted it to stay there, dead and done. I wanted to feel that her hand on my shoulder proved that I was not useless. Maybe I should have wanted to go pound on a few local drunks just to make me feel better, but maybe not. Maybe all I wanted was this hand on my shoulder.

What I got was Albus Dumbledore, master of magic, eternity and the obvious. "You see, it was all an accident," he said.

When his beard began smoking a moment later, it was no accident.

A/N: I know there are a few unanswered questions. What was wrong with Arthur may be the big one, why Tom is coming back, and so forth. One of these may be obvious; the other may be less so. Oh, and I don't dislike Dumbledore as a character completely. He'll have a chance to redeem himself later. Please review, and if there's anything you're wondering about…good. I mean, ask away.

Also, I went against canon perhaps by having the Longbottoms be tortured before Voldemort's death. I have my reasons.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"No really, it's fine, I look younger without it."

This after a bit of shouting from Hermione, some poorly- suppressed laughter from the boys (who I was warming to) and a few sprayings of water from wands all around onto a somewhat damp and yet irritatingly good-natured Dumbledore.

Did Arthur even know those men? What was wrong with him? Why did he just accept what they said at face value and then follow through with it over so many years?

I asked these questions aloud to the room in general. Honestly I was trying to change the subject from my inadvertent, well-deserved but wrongful barbering. But the man was getting on my nerves. Maybe I was a little sensitive. Maybe I was wrong to be mad at him. I just felt like he gave out a sort of unspoken "If everyone plays along it'll be fine" ambience, and maybe I was new here but I was not okay with people telling me to accept their weirdness. The funny thing about that, I observed to myself, is that you are a bit weird yourself, and not just in the fish-out-of-water, boy-from-the-big-city-who's-some-kind-of-upholstery-animating-wizard way – and you took Arthur at face value and still do. And Ginny's all right with you, more than all right, and your parents are fine with you, and Hermione, and the boys, and Luna… So you've chosen Dumbledore to beat up on mentally, and maybe he has a bit coming but maybe not from you.

Well, I'm new at this, I thought defensively, and then I thought, I'm defensive against my own inner monologue. Why can't I just get along?

Arthur wandered in around this point and commented mildly on the smell in the air. I got up and went over to him, putting my hand on his shoulder to let him know I wasn't angry. In fact, there weren't enough words for this poor man who'd gone so far to do what he thought he had to do. I was glad I never got too angry at him.

"Arthur, what did you do…" I dreaded the answer to this question. "What did you do after what happened to Molly and me, and before you took me away?"

"Oh, well," he said, sighing, "I suppose not a lot. I was fairly useless with the children. I mostly just, you know, sat round and watched the grass grow… What? I liked to."

The room was very quiet, and everyone was looking at him.

"Well, it was a lot to take in," he said.

"I can imagine," Luna said softly.

"All right then," Charlie said loudly, "you said Voldemort isn't gone. Can you get back round to that?"

"Just a moment," I said. I was trying to remember the conversation we'd had, Arthur and I, the first one I could really remember, and what he'd told me about his mission. When you only have a few memories in your head and you hear something similar to one of them, it stands out a bit. And the more that things linked together, the more I wanted them not to, like somehow this linking was forming the basis of my current, working memory and I didn't want it to be, didn't want to build my house on this unstable marshy land. Not at all. Quick! I thought. Remember something else! Something good!

"Sorry about the vase," I said.

"That's all right, dear," my mother said, sitting at the table with my brother in her arms. "It's good as new."

"Oh, yeah, right." No wonder everything around here was older-looking but in fabulous shape. It could be fixed anytime by waving a wand at it. The vase wasn't a great memory. Where did that come from? The events around it. Seeing her for the first time. Pretty great, actually. I had to remind myself that balancing the bad was fairly easy by grabbing a gander at the good. And she – yes, she still looked like an explosion in a beauty factory.

Dumbledore began to furiously scratch his chin.

"Well, the basis of that," he began, not halting his scratching, "of course is found in what happened the last time, in everyone's efforts to bring Tom down." His chin, which clearly had not seen much daylight to begin with and thus was a bit pale, was becoming paler. No, something was sprouting from it. "Once we became aware of what Tom had done along the road to immortality, we took steps to eradicate the fragments of his soul that were scattered across our land - you know, Deasil, I would just as soon allowed it to grow back naturally - and found and destroyed the six artifacts we knew he'd made –"

"Okay, sorry, and what the hell are you talking about?"

"Ah. Tom feared death, as those with huge egos often do, and wanted to escape it more than anything. During his time at school he discovered a way to infuse an object with part of his soul, so that if his body were to be destroyed, something of his essence would linger on in another place and potentially be able to be restored to life. This object, once infused, is referred to as a horcrux. It is a dark and horrible thing, created only by the most horrible act – murder. Taking another life renders the soul of the killer unstable, and at this moment a fragment of it may be extracted and placed in the object."

"So he made a horcrux." I sat by my mother.

"There were seven."

Charlie looked as though something had made sense to him. That left only me in the dark. I personally was liking the dark. It didn't make me need to wear the expression he was wearing.

"You said six."

"I said we found six. One of them was thought to be irretrievably destroyed, until recently." He looked down at his respectable six inches of beard. I would think anyone would have stopped there before entering seventies-Texan-rock status, which I learned about later and had a bit of a giggling fit over that I was hard-pressed to explain, but his had been longer still than that. Well, if it was going to get any longer, it would be without the help of my subconscious.

My mother said, "All right, Albus," and turned to face me. Her eyes were familiar and warm and sad. "The next part is a little hard. No one was there to see this, but we know that it more or less happened this way. Tom came to kill you that night, and Molly was there to guard you. When he cast the killing curse at her, his soul became unstable. Because Molly had sacrificed herself for you, we believe you were at that moment protected by a very ancient type of magic. Tom then came to your cot and cast the curse at you, but your protection deflected the spell, causing it to strike him and destroy his body – but at that moment a fragment of his unstable soul splintered away from him and found the closest receptacle it could. Had he been a few steps back it might have been Molly, but as it turns out it was you."

I began to feel a little like getting rid of all my dinner and then not starting over.

"But Molly was dead."

"She wasn't," she said. "We don't know why, but the killing curse did not kill her. She's in a coma."

"And now I'm … one of the … the horcruxes. Wait a minute, I have some of that psycho's soul in me?" I began to stand, but her hand was on me, bringing me back down.

"There is some connection between you and Tom," she said softly. "It's unclear what that is exactly."

"Okay." I breathed in deeply. Reality was not my friend. It was a choppy dark sea that I had to flounder in, whether I liked it or not, and it was time I took another plunge in. "A piece of him is stuck in me. I understand how that's bad for me, I mean … eurrgh, and everything, but why is that bad for everyone else exactly?"

"Because," Dumbledore's voice came, grating on my nerves because he brought bad news around like shite brought stink, "each horcrux he created was a way for him to come back to life. So long as they were all gone, when Neville Longbottom struck him down, we believed him to be gone forever."

"And you thought I was gone forever."

"We had reason to believe you had been taken away by Sirius Black and killed, as a service to his master."

I heard breath being expelled, probably by my father.

"We were all devastated," my mother said to me.

"You were the only one to survive the killing curse," Hermione said, almost to herself. "You were the boy who lived. Everyone in the magical world knows who you are. You were the one who gave us all hope…"

"Hope for what?"

"That he could be fought and defeated," she said. "When he returned, you were a symbol to us, of resistance and triumph. It infuriated and frightened him that you had been able to hurt him so badly. It's likely that that helped us, in the end."

"Either one can live…" I said.

"No, that's all wrong, you see," Dumbledore said. "The man who repeated what he thought was the prophecy was clearly drunk and probably misheard as well. Fortunately I was there to hear it correctly. The part you're speaking of was as follows – 'Neither can live while the other survives'."

"Albus, for Merlin's sake," my father said angrily, "we'll thank you later for remembering it word for word, we all bloody know it. This is Deasil's life you're talking about."

"And he should know –"

"Not like this!" Ginny shouted. "Not so you can have all your bloody ducks in a row, you stupid old git!"

I was becoming accustomed to these silences. They were a comfortable place to regroup. I knew pretty much for sure I had a staunch ally in Ginny. I knew I had a chip of someone's soul inside me - well, I didn't _know_ it because it was just too hard to wrap my brain around, but I was to understand thus. And as long as I was around, a vicious maniac was free to return from the dead. And I didn't know what the fix was for that, other than being dead myself.

Oh, my head was hurting.

Maybe a bit more than I could stand.

They all went away. Then I went somewhere else.

•

I was wondering – am I? And if I am, and there's something that is not me, it must be somewhere else, and then where am I compared to it, and if it's important to differentiate me from the other thing, and I have an identity, then who am I? Not-the-other-thing? Is there more to be said than that – that what I'm not defines me? It doesn't sound that great to just be not-that-thing-over-there or only-slightly-similar-to-that-thing-here, when I – and I must be, must exist, I guess that's irrefutable now, as plain as – something… where was I? Dinner. What was that thing over there? A fireplace. Not there anymore. And that thing here? A man. Not like me. Nothing like me. I would never do that. Do what? Who was he? And where did he go?

I was in a little bit of pain. My extremities, which I now was aware that I possessed, were a little tingly. If you ever need to figure out what's going on with your body, like if it works and what most of it is good for, it's a good idea to start with involuntary reactions, which can sort of do things for themselves that you can then interpret and then sort of join in in a subtle way, like at the movies when you're figuring out which queue you need to be in though they're all crowded together and it just looks like a mob, though not an angry one, sort of a placid mob, and then when you figure out which one is for the gorilla movie that you want to see you kind of edge into it as though that was what you intended all along. I was figuring this was true, anyway, so I stayed still, waiting for something to happen.

What happened was: a small motion, a rolling, a trickle of sensation that started in a place that could only be my forehead and passed between my apparent brows, I mean apparently they existed and I had them, and ended in my eye, causing my eyelid to flutter rapidly. This brought light, and irritation, and then more awareness. When you see things, you can make sense of what they're doing. Light all around me resolved into discrete things that with a little prompting I could identify. Tree-trunk, two feet in shoes, shadows from sunlight on a dirt road. Further examining indicated the feet were mine, or at least being controlled by me. The drop was sweat, I was sitting up. Something was nudging my side. It was about the size and shape of a duffel bag.

It was a duffel bag. This bag was clearly moving of its own accord. Now, I recognized it as a bag, and in my memory there was a file on duffel bags, albeit limited, and any mention of them being animate objects was missing. This one was rubbing against me like a dog. Like a … Be serious. What? Serious. Who used to say that? Daddy? I have a daddy? Get serious.

Well, it was clearly _my_ animated duffel bag. I tried to imagine what duffel bags might like, or perceive as a friendly overture, and settled for a tentative scratch along the broad side. My fingers made a strangely satisfying scraping noise against the rough canvas, and apparently it was satisfying for both of us. The bag flattened itself and stretched each end up in the air a little, then proceeded to flip over on its side, presumably to reveal its most tender and unreachable spots.

Centering. Breathing in and out. Enjoying a sunny day, a little cool, just a man sitting in a country road, scratching his bag.

Mornings were always slow.

Oh, that's me remembering something. If I thought about it, I could remember a lot of mornings. A long line of them, receding into the past like train tracks. One the same as the other. The room the same, only that the further back I saw, the larger it got. The blanket the same for a long time, except at the end, when it somehow… became more active. Not a thing for blankets to do, but then there was the bag I was scratching, writhing in the dirt, miserably happy. So maybe I just didn't know much about the world. Maybe there was someone I could ask. I was feeling a little insecure, a little restless, a little inconsolable. Get serious, I told myself, attempting to rise in a very rickety fashion. Between my feet I'd surveyed the surrounding area, and not come up with much. Distant farmhouses, and before me a vacant lot. No, wait, it wasn't vacant, what was I thinking? There was a large house there, surrounded by trees and a picket fence. Maybe I just didn't see it. Maybe I was very slow in the morning. I staggered a bit and finally made it upright, kicking up a little dust and startling the bag. I have to figure this out, I don't really feel safe. Get serious.

I went through the gate and headed for the front door. The bag arrived late. I thought it might be prudent to wait for it, on the outside chance that it really was a weird thing after all to have an animate bag following you around, and I contemplated its response to the "stay" command before knocking on the door.

The door opened and a red-headed young man answered. He looked a little surprised to see me, and a little relieved. He must know me, I thought. He looked down at my feet for a moment, then turned his head and shouted into the house, "Who let the bag out?"

Turning back to me he said, "We were worried about you. First thing we knew we were all upstairs in the guest bedroom, looking at each other."

I must have looked blank.

"Deasil, you all right, mate?" he said. I wondered if "Deasil" were an expletive of some sort.

"Okay, I think I get it," he said. "Don't remember me, right? Well, I'll bet I know someone you'll remember. Gin? Oi, Gin! Company's here!"

I clearly heard, from somewhere in the house, a female voice saying, "Bloody hell. Could he have picked a worse time? Of all the thick-headed…" Doors flung open and every flower with red in it strode purposefully in shaking her head and saying, "Honestly, Michael, we've been through this before and now is not the best time to – oh!" And then, "Oh! You're back? You're back! Are you…oh. You don't – you can't – do you?"

She could have been reciting the phone book. I was smitten. You know how your mouth waters when you see your favorite food? Whatever the analog to my entire being would be, that. I don't know, she was so pretty it made me a little stupid.

"Well, good to hear you've clarified all that, Healer Weasley," the young man said.

"Ron…" Her eyes narrowed.

"Right, sorry, I'll jut leave you to it, then," he said, still cheerful. He ambled away, casting amused looks at her. "I'll just tell Lily, shall I?"

She was struggling internally with something. His eyes were on her even as he sauntered toward the door she'd come through, and he had the faintest glimmer of mischief in his expression. Finally without looking at him she thrust her hand out, palm towards him. "Why don't … why don't you give me a moment first."

He glanced at me, a smirk blooming, and said, "Maybe that would be best," and quietly closed the door after him.

This was all beyond me, but that was all right. I had an excuse to look at her while I figured out the little things, like who I was and who she was and if we were an us and if I was perhaps Michael and had come at a bad time.

"Are you feeling all right?" she asked me tentatively.

"I suppose so," I said. "Compared to what?"

"Do you have anything to compare it to?"

"No."

"Nothing hurts, though?"

"No." She moved towards me, reaching a hand out towards my arm. I honestly would have unscrewed it and handed it to her if I could have - she could have had anything from me she wanted. When she pulled out a stick and pointed it at my head, I was willing to mark that as "weird in passing", but not anything more. Until she mumbled, it glowed, and my vision blurred for a moment. That I noticed.

"What was all that?" I asked, taking a step back.

"Sorry," she said, "sorry, I was just – checking to see if you'd been hurt."

"With a chopstick?"

"Ah. We're back to that." She put her stick away and closed her eyes for a moment. I imagined her asleep. It was a sudden image, and a sweet one, and I was a little surprised but it was very pleasant, and then just as suddenly her eyes opened and she looked a little triumphant. "Come sit with me."

"Okay." She led me past a flight of stairs and a number popped into my head. I kept it to myself. There was a small sofa in an adjacent room, and we sat on it together.

"I think I can jumpstart this …" she said, not sounding entirely confident.

"Jumpstart what?" I said.

"You don't remember anything, right?"

"Right."

"Maybe I can help you to remember, but you're going to have to…"

"To what?"

"Well, to …look into my eyes."

"Could I anyway?" What the hell. Clumsy but honest. I hoped she liked that.

She flushed. "It'll help if you're relaxed."

I was relaxed enough to be slipped under a door. "Okay."

She took my hand in hers and fixed her gaze on me. Her eyes were a beautiful brown, with gold and green somehow weaved in as well, and they were warm and kind, but I could feel motion behind them, a quick mind and a strength greater than her small body. I felt like she wouldn't tell a joke, but that she might do something to make someone laugh. Then I imagined her smiling, and I had to smile myself. Her lips pulled into a grin then, and it was better than I had imagined. Her nose crinkled, and dimples appeared, and smile lines, and I felt that I could look at her all day.

We sat still, just grinning at each other, for a good while.

Finally she said, "So?"

"So what?"

"Do you hear anything?"

"No."

"Loud or silent?"

"What does that mean?"

She looked disappointed.

"It means … I'm not sure."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm a bit useless."

"You are not useless," she said firmly, and her eyes flashed. "I guess I – I'd hoped that I could…well, anyway, I'll get your parents and they'll be able to help." She rose and took a few quick steps across the room, the sound light and crisp. The number came back into my head.

"Why twelve?" I said.

"What?"

"Why twelve steps?" I said, trying to put something together. It was the sound and the number and the … stairs. "There are more than twelve steps in the stairwell. Why did I only hear twelve steps?"

Her eyes had been blank with remembering, but then she lit up, and I had seen this before, had seen her. Her. My her.

"I was in a hurry," she said, coming back to me in every way, including the walking towards me way. The returning to myself, my basis, was jarring but also somehow exquisite, because when I looked to find the center of things, she was there, waiting. I stood up to meet her. "I skipped every other step towards the top."

"Why did you become a midwife?" I asked, as her hand came into mine again.

"I needed a break from tending to my mum," she said. "I needed to see life go on."

"I see," I said. "I mean, I can see that."

"I know you can," she said, and she pulled me into a tight hug. It was surely the best thing in the world. "And I'm so glad that you can see that. And I was worried about you."

"Why?"

"Oh, no reason," she sighed into my shoulder, "just that you got very upset and then we were all suddenly upstairs in your room but you were gone, and we figured you must have done it but by accident and you were nowhere in the house."

It was funny. She sounded really upset but not wanting to show it. I wondered why she wouldn't just say, but then I thought, she – Ginny, her name like a juicy wedge of orange in my mouth – must have her reasons, and I shouldn't take it from her, but wait for it to be given. Whatever it was that was making her protective of herself, I wanted to ease it, and I felt awkward and humbled that my presence could make her feel better. Maybe I should back off a little, I thought - maybe she needs to remember her strength, maybe she didn't need an out-of-focus fellow like me to lean on anyway.

What I said was, "I'm here now."

I don't know how I said it. What my inflection was, what the pacing was like. Of many things I would like to remember in my patchwork life, how I said those words is high on the list, just so I could sort of…pull it off the shelf sometime, dust it off, and say it again every day of my life so she would look at me that way again.

It would probably be worth the subsequent slap as well. But I might only pull it down every other day.

"Www…" That was my comeback. She'd taken a step back. Her hand was still in the air. It was the other one I was concerned about. It didn't have a wand in it. It was opening and closing rapidly. Her face was florid with fury.

"You… you just … you…"

You read my mind. You read my _mind_!

The wrong thing for me to say at that moment would have been, "I swear I didn't." And it really was, actually.

The hand was still opening and closing. I really should have worried a little about her slapping hand, though. She reminded me of it.

This kind of pain was a little new to me. As far as I knew I'd never been slapped before. My cheek was burning and one eye was a little blurry.

"Can you stop doing that?" I asked.

"You're just like him!" she rasped. "You wait until I'm weak. I tell you – I show you myself, like an _idiot_… I think you're … and then you bloody take what you want!"

Breath. Breath. Breath.

"But why should I be surprised," she said, with a coarse flatness to her voice, like she was twisting something to get it out. "He's left a little of himself in you."

You know what I'm not going to do? I'm not going to pass out. I'm not going to vanish out of here. I am not going to forget who I am. And there really isn't that much of me, is there? So I would know if there were someone else in here with me. And I know I've been alone all this time. The only one in here with me is you. And I know I have heard you thinking and feeling, because it is something you allowed. And maybe it's because we were close that we were thinking the same thing, and you know this about me because I'm wide open to you, you know this,

"And I was not looking you in the eye."

I said the last out loud, but I had just realized she'd heard it all, because I was looking right at her.

"What you heard was you, not me, because I was not looking you in the eye."

Her face had gone pale.

There was a short interlude of silence, punctuated only by the sound of various pieces of furniture trying to edge their way quietly out of the room.

"Is this," I said, gesturing around the room, into the air, wherever, "what the world is really like? Did I wake up out of a long dreamless sleep to this? Is this what knowing and remembering have to offer me? Is this what having feelings I can hang onto is going to _cost_?"

"No," she said quietly, "no, it's not, it's my fault –"

"Did you practice it? Did you practice that voice? Have you done this before? Did you have a speech ready for when I showed up, so you could punish me? I'M NOT TOM!"

Burning smell. Walls bubbling, crackling, hissing. Sweat on her face, run together with tears.

"ALL RIGHT!" she shouted. "SO I HAVE SOME ISSUES!"

A few moments later when the others swarmed into the room, they found two wild and raggedy-looking people in the middle of the floor, covered in soot, laughing hysterically.

"He's home, I guess," my father said.

"And found himself a friend," said my mother.

"Ow," I gasped, "my stomach."

"Stop laughing," Ginny said, one bright eye visible under her terrifically filthy hair, "and then we'll both be all right."

"Stop being so funny." I tried to drag myself to my feet and her with me. We kind of made it, arms around each other's shoulders, and staggered a bit until we were mostly upright. I had a look at the room we were in. The walls were dark and split in spots, the furniture was singed, the ceiling utterly black in a circle radiating out above us. It was smoky and smelled horrible.

It was hilarious.

Between moans and shrieks of laughter, we managed to express, sometimes verbally and sometimes with a variety of gestures, how sorry we were that the room was … burnt up. All burnt up. Oh, boy. I burned up my parents' living room. Well, we did it. Maybe a little of the humor was wearing off now. Maybe it was her fault. I didn't know what I was doing. I just got here. I must be a complete jackass coward.

"Look, mum, this is my fault. She helped me to remember, and helped me to fight off the retreating and the passing out and all that. I just got a little –"

"This isn't all you," Ginny said indignantly, though sounding a little drunk. "I was flaming mad. It's not as though you did this all yourself. I know very well I singed that chair over there."

"Oh, that whole chair, is that right? What about this –" I waved my free arm in the air " – black snow we've got in here. Did that just start falling on its own? And the only reason the chair is over there is because it was afraid of me!"

Percy chose this moment to step forward. "This is just about right. This is what I've come to expect from you, Ginevra – "(Paydirt, I thought.)" – once again you've allowed your feelings get the better of you. One would think by now someone who calls herself a Healer might have learned how to carry herself with some amount of dignity."

"Piss off, Perce," the twins said together.

"She needs to think of how she appears to people. The impression one makes is crucial –"

"And what kind of impression are you trying to make here?" I asked, honestly curious.

"Well – that is, I don't need to make an impression on you all – _most_ of you are my family."

"But Ginny needs to make one?"

He looked put out. "I can see you wouldn't understand," he said stiffly.

"Well," I said, "it's true I grew up without my family, so I don't know what it's like to have people who know me better than anyone and put up with my quirks or call me on my foolishness, or maybe I'm learning it but I haven't had the years of experience you've had with my parents. But surely they've wanted you to be yourself around them?"

He was clearly not happy about remembering that. "I've been without my parents too, you know." And shifting the subject back to reprimanding Ginny, he said, "I wonder what Mother would have thought of all of this."

Ginny looked stricken – clearly Percy knew the chinks in her armor.

"You could always ask her," Luna said.

"What good would that do?" Percy replied, turning on her. "She's not there – it's just her body."

"She may not be there right now," Ginny said, all humor gone, all balled up like a fist. "But she is still with us."

"That's right," Charlie said, coming to stand by Ginny.

"She's still our mum, you dolt," one of the twins said.

"As you might remember if you ever did a thing to help with her," the other one said.

"This is ridiculous!" Percy said, wiping his face in frustration. "She _was_ our mother. What you're tending to is not her any more. She isn't _there_."

My mother was casting concerned looks at Arthur. I was beginning to wonder how he was taking this – the idea of him having a wife that he loved was relatively new to me, understandably. Maybe he wouldn't like the idea of one of his sons treating her like an object. Or maybe he wouldn't sort of notice. He was funny like that. Not always there. Saint Arthur's Home for the Chronically Distracted, that was our apartment. Still, it irked me that someone would blather on about his wife's body being an empty shell without thinking of how it would make him feel at all. Or maybe it was all about how he would feel. It seemed too pointed to not be aimed at someone.

Voices were raising. Bill and Charlie both began to berate Percy for his harshness, Ginny was dragging her fingers through her hair, the twins started in, Hermione tried to placate the crowd - my father shouted over them to get them to quiet down – it was very loud in there, so loud I almost didn't hear Luna when she said, "Percy's right, you know."

Funny that when someone speaks quietly at just the right time, it can silence an entire room.

Ginny spoke first. "Luna, how can you say that? You've been with me in hospital, you've tended to her yourself. You've been helping all this time and you think she's gone forever?"

"I didn't say that," she said. "I just said Percy was right."

"Well what the bloody hell do you think he's right about?"

"That she isn't there. Excuse me a moment." She went over to the now-blackened fireplace, ignited a fire in it, tossed some powder from a small jar into the fire, and plunged her head in after saying, "Professor McGonagall's office."

It was really hard to get used to seeing that.

After a few moments she backed away and the fireplace flared, disgorging a sharpfaced witch from its flames. I use the term "witch" now because she was the first one who looked anything like how I imagined a witch would appear. She had on a pointed cap, she was all in black, and she was a bit wizened and stern looking. The stern face only wavered slightly as she took the room in.

"Lily, James, children," she said, passing over me and not seeing Arthur. "Miss Lovegood, what is it that is so important that it could not wait?"

"Just a few questions, really. You taught Molly Weasley in transfiguration?"

"Yes, of course I did, and also charms, I filled in for Professor Flitwick while he was on sabbatical, but why –"

"Was she a good student, or do you recall?"

"I recall all of my students, Miss Lovegood. She was fair to good, with a few weaknesses."

"What might they have been?"

"Well – " She looked at the Weasley family with something resembling compassion. " - And you understand, children, your mother was a very talented witch, but she did have an idiosyncrasy or two. She had her own ideas about household charms, though they were very innovative, but she had a bit of a – problem with execution."

"How is that?"

"Her wand motion. It was fairly consistent for part of the range, but she had a muscular condition, I believe, that impeded her somewhat."

Hermione looked as though someone had stuck a key in the back of her head and given it a turn, but she remained silent and listening.

"A muscular condition?"

"Yes. When casting many spells, she tended to drift a bit, which compromised her effectiveness, and often changed the outcome of the –"

"I beg your pardon, Professor," Luna said, "but how did she drift?"

"It was … it was a little to the right."

A/N: A lot happened in this chapter. I'm feeling a little like I packed my whole wardrobe for a weekend trip. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Reviews are appreciated.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

When everyone in a room looks at you funny, you may be inclined to look down at your feet or act like someone else did the thing you're being stared at over or blend in with the furniture, as apparently I have done, maybe just quietly leave the room with a newspaper in front of your face, or maybe to stand with your head held high and glower back at your accusing public, defying them to be judgmental of you when they all have very obvious defects themselves, some of them have goofy clothes on and there are a few very suspect haircuts or what have you, and this is hypothetical because far be it from me to say that any of the folks around me were funny-looking in any way, I mean some of them are really quite attractive and only one of them is the sort who you would add "if you like that sort of thing" to that statement, but it's not his fault – I seem to have lost my thread here. Anyway, everyone was looking at me expectantly, as if I were preparing to give birth to a rhino with the able assistance of the other parent, whatever that might be, or more properly whatever it would take for me to mate with in order to produce a rhino, including having the appropriate biological equipment to do so, and I was having a little difficulty in nailing down exactly what I was feeling at this moment, so my mind was wandering. A bit.

I was thinking of what it is to be a mother. Mine seemed great, I mean caring and smart and perceptive and possessed of that knack of making you feel like it was just the two of you wherever you were. She was firm but loving with the Weasley kids from what I saw, clearly closest to Ginny but respected and loved by all of them, even Percy to a degree. She seemed like she was strong when she had to be. She was also the first mother of anyone that I could remember. The second mother I ever heard of was Molly.

If Molly was any indication of what mothers were like, I thought, then they were amazing beings. Molly put herself between me and a murderer, losing her consciousness in the process, and I wasn't even her child. And the whole elf thing. She must have been something to have as a mother, and the loss of her from her family would certainly explain the tentativeness, the faintly halting cadence of their voices, the bursts of anger and frustration. Such a bitter catalyst for everyone's lives, I thought more or less, and I decided that when I felt sorry for myself maybe I should think of the boys and girl who lost more than I knew could exist, that the things I felt that I might have been inclined to call hurt were really more like sentimentality, like nostalgia for a time that never existed, but during my long sleep they had all been awake and forced to live with the wrongfulness of this undermined life.

I also thought that if my friend Luna could remain herself while people stared at her, then I would have to learn to as well.

She was speaking. "Professor McGonagall, I would like for you to meet someone." She turned to me.

The older woman looked at me for a moment. She clearly found me wanting. "How do you do," she said politely, but indicating with her tone that she had no inclination towards shaking hands. "Minerva McGonagall."

Luna examined me for a moment, then said in her violin voice, "Oh, how silly of me. May I clean you up a bit?" She pulled out her wand.

"I guess so," I said. Okay, more magic things. This might be good. I was a bit sooty. I probably looked like what they give to bad kids on Christmas. There was a mildly abrasive feeling that rolled over me for an instant, and then I felt … lighter is as good a description as any. My hands were clean, my arms…very nice. I looked up, feeling much better, and then that good feeling evaporated. Minerva was staring at me in horror and disbelief. Most of that horror was focused around my forehead.

"Lily…" she said tremulously. "Is this …"

"Yes, Minerva. He's my first born son. He was taken by Arthur Weasley when he was four and hidden away – Arthur even changed his name. We thought he was dead all these years, but –"

"Arthur abducted him?" Minerva asked incredulously.

"Changed my name?" I said.

She worked her way to me through a bit of rubble and said, "Yes, it was one of the 'orders' he was given that he took literally. We'd actually named you H – well, after your grandfather."

Minerva was still standing there like she was in a strong gale. "The boy who…"

"Lived? I suppose so, though no one but me seems to be happy about it," I said, perhaps a little unworthily. "My name is Deasil."

Luna's eyes were bright. "Molly must know some unusual spells." She came a little closer to Minerva and said, "Aren't you very good at memory charms?"

"I should say so."

"Can you describe the Obliviate spell?"

"Well, it's a fairly simple one – it's more the intention of the caster that begins the spell. The wand flicks left, then makes a small clockwise rotation before a swish to the r - … actually, before a deasil swish."

"It was curious, really," Luna said softly, almost to herself, "at least to me."

"What in particular is curious, Miss Lovegood?"

"Why he should be named after a movement that Molly Weasley had difficulty with, why Arthur's memory charms on him didn't work all of the time, why Molly is in a coma instead of dead, why Arthur stumbled into a pub in a highly suggestible state the night his wife was attacked and heard what he took to be orders from a group of drunken men, and then carried them out to the letter for fourteen years, and why in order to hide, instead of merely changing his hair and face a little, he disguised himself as a woman? And not awfully well, either – oh, I'm sorry about that," she said over her shoulder.

A faint "That's quite all right, dear" floated in from somewhere.

Minerva paused, then shook her head slightly.

"I seem to have missed a few things," she said. "Do we have any way of explaining this?"

"Well," Luna said, "we could always ask."

There was another pause. "I beg your pardon? Has Arthur returned as well?"

"Yes," his voice came from the back of the room, and he shuffled out into view behind Luna. He was wearing a simple blue dress and flats that I think, had I been able to remember them, that I never would have liked much on him.

He had a way of silencing a room.

It was Luna who spoke first. "I suppose I thought one of the Weasleys would have wanted to do this, but I can ask them if you would like."

"Ask who?" Minerva said.

"Them."

She indicated Arthur.

Blank stares.

"It's not just him in there, I don't think."

Right.

Right!

"Arthur?" I said softly.

"Yes," he said.

"…Molly?"

"Yes, dear?"

Ron, to his everlasting credit, encapsulated the feelings of all present.

"Merlin's…wrinkly…bollocks."

"Ronald Bilius Weasley, language," Arthur said.

It was his mother speaking to him.

•

I forget things. This is not unusual for me, but it is regrettable. Not to me, I mean it's all the same to me when I remember anything. Unless I forget a birthday, or what someone's least-favorite nickname is, or that there's a baseball coming at me, or, well, like that. Some things should happen in order, or so I understand, and perhaps it's best to hear a story in the order that the events therein had occurred. But that's not what appears to me. Maybe other people remember everything like a movie, one frame after another, and maybe that is a thing that shores up the reality of a memory, that it plays back on demand, tells its story in an apparently objective and orderly way, and then folds itself up for easy re-filing and future access. But for me memory doesn't unfold, or march in an orderly way. It lunges, flares, and looms. It billows, and flickers, and sometimes goes out like a candle. It's solid though diaphanous, my backbone and ribs and femurs and also my guts, my cartilage, my soft tissue. It bruises easily but now that I possess it it's the defining thing, the most powerful structure in my life.

Anyway, I forgot about the elf thing.

Ginny's mother, according to Ginny (freshly convinced not to harm me, still amused by her joking with me about why she became a midwife), was from an old family, not a uniformly wealthy one, but for the most part willful, intelligent, hard-working and good-natured as a tradition. She'd told me this in a matter-of-fact way, but it was clear she loved them. There were people in the family Ginny only tolerated, but the underlying theme was present in all of them. Her father and her brothers had always told her stories about Molly when she was small, and it was partially those stories that made her feel so close with her, even though Ginny had not heard her mother's voice since she was three – they were what she had for memories, and she treasured them. Molly was a practical girl who liked to make things, who liked healing hurts and looking after things and people. She rescued abandoned baby birds and nursed them to health when she could, though she always had a problem with releasing them. She was compassionate and curious about how things worked, and these two traits came together one day at the house of a wealthy friend of hers who she visited sometimes during her childhood summers.

The house was very large, with some floors that were beautiful stained wood, some with richly colored rugs full of scenes from nature and complete with animated magical creatures scampering across their surfaces (she wanted to hear about how this was possible and pestered her girlfriend's father until he explained it to her), and some of a smooth, cool marble, always perfectly clean and which she always wanted to press her cheek against, and I thought of the side of our building in Manhattan and the broad silence of stone. At a certain point she became aware of the permanent state of cleanliness of the floors, and indeed of the rest of the house, and marveled to her friend about how much work it must take to keep their home in such wonderful condition all of the time, thinking of her mother and her shoulders moving from behind, scrubbing something with a brush that magic would not clean. Her friend laughed and said it was the elves before pulling her outside to play. Her day thereafter was permeated by an image she could not shake.

When she arrived home, she found her mother in the kitchen, preparing food with her wand hand and stirring a pot with the other, and asked her if elves were real. Her mother turned her head and told Molly that yes, they were real, and they were industrious, powerful creatures who knew all sorts of magic that humans didn't, that they were faithful and generous, and that some people felt that it was all right to take advantage of their good nature and skills but that in the Prewitt house, humans could do their own dirty work. For the rest of the evening, Molly's young mind was haunted by images of enslavement.

When she returned to her friend's house, she marched directly up to her friend's father and asked him if he had enslaved elves in his house to do the cleaning. The man laughed and told her that she didn't understand, that they weren't slaves and were very happy to serve their masters, that if they had no one to serve, well, they just wouldn't know what to do.

If there was one thing Molly really despised, it was being condescended to. If there was a master, there was a slave, she reasoned. She determined to find an elf in the house and ask if he or she was a slave or not. This turned out to be very difficult – she hadn't seen them before because they were quite stealthy in the performance of their tasks. When she finally managed to find one, it was in the otherwise empty dining room. She had been quietly wandering through the house while her friend was otherwise occupied and stepped quietly into the room, where she was surprised to see a short, wiry figure, dressed only in a cast-off flour sack, causing a variety of dishes to arrange themselves in a decorative fashion on a side cabinet. The figure was female, with large drooping ears and a long nose, and large bright eyes. She was unaware that she was being watched, and she was doing all of her magic without a wand. When Molly realized this (she was too young to have a wand, and thought all magic was emitted from one), she gave a small gasp. The elf turned her head rapidly with an expression of horror, and in doing so dropped one of the plates, which smashed itself on the cabinet top.

A shriek escaped the mouth of the elf, but before the bits of the plate could even stop moving, they all vanished and the original plate reappeared, now in its proper place. The elf began speaking rapidly and Molly had expected to be berated for distracting her, but once she was able to understand the broken English she realized the elf was apologizing to her and indicating what punishment might be most appropriate for her mistake.

Molly immediately countered that it was her fault, really, and besides the plate was as good as new, and … and how did she do that magic?

The elf shyly told her that she was far too gracious and kind (which mortified the girl), and that the magic she'd performed was what the master referred to as household magic, and that there were many duties to the master that the elf had to fulfill, but that when she was finished with them and if the young mistress were still here…

Molly thanked her, but insisted, "I'm too young to be anyone's mistress, I'm just Molly."

The elf began to look horrified again, and a stream of apologies and objections poured from her, taking Molly aback for a moment. Summoning a stance she assumed when her brothers were being foolish with her, she put her hands on her hips and said firmly, "I'm just Molly. This is not how friends speak to one another."

The elf's eyes grew even larger out of surprise. There was a moment of silence between them, and then she said softly, "My name is Pella," before disappearing with a crack.

Over the following years Pella and Molly spent a great deal of time together. Molly loved the elf for her kindness and generosity, and respected her magical abilities greatly. Pella was happy to find a willing and eager listener and did her utmost to share her knowledge with the girl. Her magic and indeed all elvish magic was centered on order, in this instance the magic of the house, and of what made a home. When elves lived in the wild, they were keepers of nature, unblocking streams from flotsam, tending to sickly trees that animals depended on, being a part of order. The enemy was entropy. When they encountered humans they were drawn irresistibly to the large and powerful and yet cumbersome systems that we had put into place with barely a thought as to the trueness, the rightness of order, of how things must be. Molly learned about the things that made a home, how a home is grown of balances of light and dark, objects and spaces – that it supports the owner, strengthens them, guides them back to the center when they are lost, and reflects their essence. Style is unimportant. What is, must be, and what must be, is. The home does not lie.

These ideas appealed to Molly's very core. Her mother knew of her friendship with Pella, though they did not discuss it – she could see it in the unfamiliar magic Molly used around the Prewitt home – but she approved whole-heartedly. When Molly put something in its place, it belonged. What she planted would flower with an ease her mother had never achieved in their garden. When Molly went away to school, she and Pella remained close – Molly would visit in the summer, and eventually, in an unusual turn, Molly only needed to say her name and Pella would appear before her. Molly had learned that an elf bonds to the owner of the home and is able to hear them anywhere and appear to do their bidding, and wondered aloud at why Pella could hear her, to which Pella replied, in her high, clear voice, "I believe humans have a saying – 'home is where the heart is'." Molly hugged her friend for a long time.

When the war came, Molly's entire family were involved, including her new husband. She was terrified for her brothers and Arthur, and in the way I'm told these things happen, she wanted to plant where the soil was roughest, to assert life in the face of fear and death. Her home was filled with the sounds of one, two, three boys, and she did her best to keep the ugliness of the outside world in its place beyond their doors. When Charlie was born another floor was added to their house, and when Percy came along a room was extended from that, like a new limb on an oak tree.

Ginny had spoken aloud at this point. "She tried so hard to keep the war away, but in the end it got in, like it did with everyone."

In the most cruel and wrongful way she could imagine. Two of her brothers, funny, witty and mischievous Fabian and Gideon, who had alternately irritated and delighted her for her whole life, were killed by terrorists trained by Tom Riddle, killed on their front lawn, defending the family home. When Molly arrived, she found them lying next to each other, surrounded by the bodies of five Death Eaters, and she could only think of hideous dark insects dead around a candle, extinguished by the beating of black wings.

The murderers' corpses were nearly incinerated by her burst of accidental magic.

Molly found her way home and for the next several weeks found herself helpless. Her boys needed her, but she could not rise out of her well of depression to help them. Her husband could not reach her. Small things broke and were not fixed, plants went unwatered, meals were irregular as Arthur was not a good cook, dishes piled, her magic dimmed.

In the middle of the night, Molly awakened to a small hand pulling hers. She initially thought it was one of the children, come to try and coax her from her bed, which she had not left in many days, and in a flat voice she barely recognized as her own she told the child to go back to bed, to leave her in peace.

The voice that answered her was high and clear, urging her out of bed, and with a strong tug Pella had Molly upright and was sliding her feet around to the floor. She brought a protesting Molly to her feet, jarring her into wakefulness when she said, "Your enemy has come."

Molly cast a look at Arthur, still sleeping soundly, but Pella dragged her to the door, saying that it was for Molly to face, and Molly alone. Molly was terrified at this, and tried to protest, but Pella managed to bring her out of the room and down stairs into the center of the house. Molly's eyes darted fearfully around, not seeing and not finding what she expected. She turned to Pella and whispered, "Where are they?"

"Who?"

"Death Eaters … Voldemort …" She was shivering. She had no wand. She was helpless.

"They are not your enemy now, Molly," Pella said. "Your enemy is entropy."

The family room she stood in slowly became clear to her, but painfully, as one detail after another returned to her perception. Broken toys, limping with the remains of their enchantments. Chairs pushed crooked and blocking pathways, a corner of the rug folded, the scent of spoiling food from the kitchen like a pall over everything, and the dust dulling all colors, and she saw it, cast-off skin cells, their dead weight bending the backbone of this sighing, darkened house.

"You can not let this be so," Pella said, her voice quivering with emotion. "This must not be. It is not as you truly are."

There must be order, the elf said, and vanished with a crack.

In the morning her husband was awakened by the smell of eggs and bacon. He told her later that he took a deep breath, filling himself with the scent, and then sat in their bed alone and wept, knowing his wife was returning to herself and not wanting her to see him like that, knowing she was doing what she had to do to move on. A year later two more ginger heads joined the family portrait, the house sprouted yet another floor, and one day not too long after, a clock appeared in their family room, a bit of magic that Molly had conceived and created for her home, to watch over her family and facilitate her tending, to help her keep order.

Ginny had dropped her gaze from mine at that moment, a little flushed. I wanted to thank her for letting me listen to her thoughts, and I wanted to tell her something of my own life, to maybe try to make it even, but there was nothing for me to tell. She spoke first, though.

"That clock is really amazing," she said softly. "Dumbledore clucks over it every time he thinks of it – apparently he can't figure out how it works."

"Who's that?" I said.

"Oh, he's…" She stopped talking, and was looking at me.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I'll have to do some more things that I can remember, so I can tell you what hearing your story was like."

"Oh…" She frowned a little, but let it go. "Anyway, my mum … ended up in a coma, and I wanted to be near her, because of all of the stories I'd heard. She looked like she was kind, even though she's utterly still all of the time. I visited her a lot with Charlie when I was little, and, you know, spent a lot of time in hospital, and got used to that. In school I spent a fair amount of time in the infirmary with Quidditch injuries, and - oh, Quidditch is a sport magical folk play, and it's terrifically dangerous – and I got to where I could help the school nurse with some of the healing, and then after the end of the second war, there was so much healing to do, and I could be at the hospital near my mum, and … somehow the things I used to think I wanted to do seemed so frivolous."

"We're alike," I said.

"How do you mean?"

I was struggling to put this together. "We both have been told things about what happened in our pasts, and the stories are what we have, and somehow the story has taken the place of memory, or becomes memory, or … something like that."

She gave me a slightly amused look. "I think I know what you mean. I can't be sure, because it is you, and you tend to go all around the park to end up a step away, or take one step and end up on the moon, one of the two."

"True," I said, experiencing the unknown sensation of being known to someone, having ways that someone might get accustomed to, and as with so many things surrounding her, the feeling was of a surpassing sweetness. Right around that moment my parents came back into the room.

Anyway, I remembered that.

•

"I guess I know why our apartment always looked nice, but the food wasn't so great," I said to no one in particular.

"Well, I like that," Arthur or maybe actually Molly said, "You only remember one meal and I was trying to do it without magic. The cheek…"

The Weasley kids were clearly unbalanced by this recent development. The boys were gaping in various states of disbelief at the man in the ill-fitting dress that now somehow didn't seem so strange, or maybe seemed stranger than anything they could imagine but in a more recognizable way. The strongest disbelief seemed to be emanating like heat off of a summer sidewalk from Percy. He had taken a step back and was shaking his head. He was about ready to pop.

"No, no, no!" he finally shouted. "This is ridiculous! Don't you all see? Our father has lost his mind!"

"You're wrong, Percy," Luna said, "he just has an additional one to contend with."

"You're as insane as he is," he hurled back at her. "Our family has been through enough without dredging up old –"

"I told you she wasn't dead," Ginny said, and I for one would have taken the cue from her tone and shut my mouth had I been her brother.

"You…have…to…accept this!" he growled. His brothers were clearly shocked at his tone, as if they had never seen him this way. Another thing to set me on edge. I didn't know from angry people, but this didn't look good to me. "You never even knew her! She's been gone for years! But you insist on tending her body like it's alive," he raged, taking steps towards her, "wasting our time, our money, our lives, and all of this so you can stay a stupid little g –"

Kind of suddenly, he was on the ceiling. He looked like a strand of spaghetti thrown at the refrigerator to see if it was done. And he was done, as far as I was concerned. A little chewy, in fact. Ginny looked more surprised than anyone, and her glance at me contained many things, but I was busy just then, looking him right in the eye.

"You're the one who has to accept things," I said. The world had taken on a reddish hue. "You're the one who has been wasting your life. You decided she was dead, so she's been dead to you. You wanted your hurt to end and you thought if she were dead you could move on. But it was a lie and you trapped yourself in it. You won't ever stop hurting until you stop lying."

He was shaking now, his eyes reddening, and he struggled for a moment before letting out a gutteral wail, deeper than I thought cold come from his narrow frame. Ginny gave a shuddering sigh that sounded like crying.

"Let him down, son," my father said, a little sadly. "He needs his family."

I had to stop feeling the thing I was feeling to allow him to come down, had to will it away, part anger and part sympathy, and something else, something I had suspected.

His feet touched the floor, and Bill and one of the twins took his arms, and he was able to hold himself upright, and look at me with an unfamiliar expression.

"Ginny doesn't give up on anyone," I said as I felt her moving at my side. "Not even you."

She stepped forward to her brother, brushing my arm as she passed, came to a foot or so from him, and waited, searching his face.

His expression seemed to ripple as he looked at her, like someone had dropped something heavy into a deep, clear pool, and then suddenly he was crying and she was holding him. Good sister, I thought. I hoped he knew it. I thought that he might.

I found Arthur at the edge of the room and crossed over to him, away from the re-knitting of the siblings - there were a lot of them and it took a bit of space. His face was drawn, careworn and lost. I realized what a disability his condition was. Imagining the battle for consciousness, two different impulses, two sets of feelings, a blurred sense of self. I could not wonder any more at his disconnected presence. It would be too much for anyone, being shouted at from both sides, every moment of every day. You would know bad things were happening around you, sad things, but which set of feelings would you have about them? And if the feelings were close, but not identical, wouldn't they be blurred or doubled, like having a lazy eye? I went to him and put my arm around his shoulders, which was a little more difficult as he seemed to have grown a few inches, or was it the shoes? No, it wasn't. I didn't know what to make of that, so I ignored it. "You've both looked after me all of this time," I said. "Maybe we can fix this thing that has happened."

His eyes never left his children. "We should try to," he said absently.

Percy had let go of Ginny. His cheeks were red and shiny with tears as he approached us with her at his side.

He took a long look at Arthur, and gathered himself. "I'm sorry…for how I have treated you. I can't possibly understand…I… well, I'm glad you're home."

Arthur looked at Percy as from the bottom of a well, and nodded before bowing his head.

"H-…Deasil," Percy said to me, "I know you were only protecting Ginny…"

"Not so much," I said, "I was actually protecting you from her."

His eyes found mine. He glanced at his sister, then a strange thing happened, something I never would have expected. It started life as a wince, or maybe something got in his eye, or …

He was winking at me.

"Right enough," he said.

Ginny was looking at me intently. I felt like I was being searched. Or at least patted down. I did the only thing I could do, and I hoped it would work. I thought very hard about something I had seen a few moments ago. It was a little thing, really. Just her hand, opening and closing, when he was getting ready to call her a stupid little girl.

Well, I didn't want the room to burst into flame again, did I? I thought.

_No, I suppose you're right._

Good. That was close.

She narrowed her eyes at me a little, but didn't say anything aloud. There was something else she wasn't saying, and that was all right with me.

"But how is this possible?" Minerva said. She sounded impatient. Fair enough, I thought. I was wondering the same thing.

"There's absolutely nothing like this in the literature," Hermione said, almost defensively, as if she were responsible.

"What literature?" I asked.

"Anything _I've_ ever read about magic," she said, as if that said it all, and I could easily imagine that it did. I thought she was all right. Maybe a little single-minded, but good to have on your side.

I thought of who Molly was. "All magic?"

"Well, of course all…" Hermione stopped, and her eyes glazed over for a moment. The next thing she did was smack her head, rather hard. I would have been seeing stars. It must be an extraordinarily hard head. "No. Not all magic. Only human magic. Nothing else is written down."

"Why not?"

"Erm … mostly because the general academic consensus has been that human magic is superior, which is of course completely untrue. It's just that the other forms are frowned upon by most of the people who write the books that get published. It's really a disgrace –"

"Molly," I said, turning to Arthur, "is there anything you can tell us about how this came to be and how we can fix it?"

"Oh, I don't know, dear," he said, a little flustered, as if he were being fussed over at a tea party. "It's very hard to remember, it's been so long – I can't seem to find it in me."

"But there are ways to get memories, aren't there? Magic ways – like the pub one from earlier?"

"It can be done," my mother said, "but it's more complex when the person has a block or if there is some disturbance, and this would certainly," she said as Arthur smoothed his dress and then scratched himself in what I suppose you might call a manly way, "qualify as one. It's really quite a delicate process, and…" She paused.

"What?"

"Well," she said carefully, "the real expert on that, the sort of acknowledged master, is …"

"What? Out of town? We'll go find them. What's the problem? It's not like it's Dumbledore or something," I finished.

She looked a little apologetic.

Crap.

He was surely going to be insufferable about it.

I hoped he was bringing his fireproof beard.

•

A/N: Something that really helped me through this chapter, especially after I lost an entire section because I wasn't paying attention and had to rewrite it, was a picture. It's at hp-lexicon dot org /wizards/molly.html - it's the topmost, black and white portrait of Molly. I can't imagine her any other way now. Maybe I'm projecting, but I can kind of see the girl she once was, and the woman Arthur loved for many years. It's hard for me to imagine that face slack and immobile and comatose, but it surely makes it easier to write some things. And it really makes me want to wake her up. Thanks to Jules for looking over and not over-looking.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

I feel it's very important now for me to tell my story in order. Some things just don't come out as well without the proper background. A tone should be set, an internal logic should be established, the characters and motivations should be seen to grow from seed to leaf, so that the reader's mind has undertaken the journey as well and feels the same revelations or surprises or life-changing shocks as the people in this story of my short waking life thus far. It is truly the best and most effective way to proceed.

But before I do, I want to tell you about something that happened later.

I can't really help it, you know. If everything that ever happened to you happened, say, yesterday, you probably wouldn't talk about it in order, I mean if you had gone to an amusement park and had never been to one before you might say, "Oh, we went on the big roller coaster, it was really tall, it was a wooden one, there was a smaller one too and we actually rode that one first because there was a guy in front of us in the big coaster line who had heatstroke, and there were paramedics all around, so we decided to go on the little one first, only we rode the teacup thing because it was on the way, and you know when we were leaving I'd swear I saw my cousin with a parrot on his shoulder, oh and the hot dogs were terrible…"

Or maybe you wouldn't, but I certainly would.

Ginny and I were walking in a sort of shopping mall for magic folks on a bright, cool day. Sweater weather. She'd taken me out to get a few things that a self-respecting wizard might want to have. Wizard. I was having issues referring to myself or any male magic person as a wizard, and had taken to calling myself a prestidigitator, to Ginny's piquant cocktail of irritation and amusement. In fact, it took a daily effort on my part to keep from winding her up just to see her eyes flash, her lips press together, her sweet shoulders square before the inevitable berating that charmed the pants, socks and shoes off of me. Strange image, but that's how it felt, and considering the curious heaviness I had begun feeling around her it was entirely appropriate, given the nature and location of the heaviness, to have those bits of clothing fluttering away. I had a bit of a fevered imagination where she was concerned, and I mean imagination, because I could barely imagine what I wanted from her or how to go about it, being sorely lacking in experience in that area, or my area or her area or what have you, and had been seriously thinking that a conversation with my dad was in order, because he was male too and I was his son and surely he could explain some of this. Maybe not all of it, but some certainly. He had to have experienced it at least twice. I on the other hand, for whom all things were new, had awakened and been presented with a heap of unfamiliar feelings and some unfamiliar machinery to deal with them.

She had been a fairly constant companion to me, she or Ron, and when we weren't at the hospital we were usually together. She'd been sneaking me out to the pasture behind my parents' house at night, teaching me to – well, I'm sorry, I've just remembered something else, and this is how it goes with me. So this happened before the thing I was going to tell about but after everything I've already talked about.

A few nights had passed since we'd realized Arthur had a passenger, and one evening found me lying in bed, not quite asleep yet. I was wondering whose idea it was to animate a piece of chocolate into an amphibian reptile form that actually put up a bit of a fight as you tried to eat it, and had found myself once again fairly baffled at the state of British cuisine, when there came a tapping on my window. This was only curious to me because I was on the second floor. It didn't rouse Ron, who had been my affable roommate for the week, but it did get my attention. I got myself out of bed and shuffled, sleepy and shirtless, to the window.

Ginny was sort of floating out there. She wore an impish grin that faded for some reason and then returned in force. I opened the window and said, "What time are you?"

She giggled. "Night is wasted on the sleeping," she said in a low voice.

"You're taller than I remember," I said.

"Wh - It's the broom." Five points.

"Broom."

"I'm a witch, genius. I ride a broom."

"Is it uncomfortable?"

"No."

"I mean, how do you – where do you put your – how does your - can I see?"

"From anyone else…"she muttered, "pow!"

"Sorry," I said. "What brings you to my sleepy window?"

She paused, and her face seemed to glow, pale in the darkness, and there were lots of words on her tongue, but what came out was, "That's why there's no pow."

"Hmm?"

"It's time you learned how to do this. And in the right way as well. Good enough for me and it'll be the same for you. It's in your blood, and these blood matters are best handled with stealth and underhandedness."

I pondered this, being slightly more awake than before.

"Don't think about it too hard," she said. "Just do as I say and everything will go far more smoothly."

"You say that a lot, don't you," I said.

"Back door, Potter, five minutes," she said, and with a rush of air she was gone.

I stopped by my bed and pulled on a shirt that was lying there. It smelled like someone, probably me.

Hell, yes, I thought.

She met me with two brooms in her hands. She looked like she meant business, and I felt like she was going to tell me to sweep the pasture or something. No, maybe not – there was that mischief again, and I heard something from her that is in my memory very clearly now.

If a thing is worth doing, it's even more worth it if you are a little wrong in doing it.

Or something like that.

She gestured with her head towards the pasture and I walked with her into the dark, under trees that were graceful and sheltering during the day, but at night became the ceiling of a dark cathedral, into which one might steal secretly to meet a mysterious beauty, and I was really on board with that. She was shorter than I, surefooted and silent, slipping between narrow tree trunks, her hair shining as her pony-tail bounced, as though someone were carrying a torch.

"Your father was a brilliant flyer when he was at school," she said, her velvet voice wound through crackling leaves. "He was a star Chaser. That's – a position he played on the school Quidditch team. Chasers are the ones who try to get the quaffle through one of the other team's three rings, and this requires a very skilled flyer – and your dad was the best in his year, maybe in all of his time at Hogwarts –"

My brain was feeling a little put upon. Chaser, Quaffle, Quidditch, Hogwarts. I had been having the feeling of great velocity over the last few days, as many things had sped past me without any time for me to grasp or understand them. There was a part of me that struggled to make room for things, to file them away or incorporate them into my life - I'd already had a few ridiculous moments where I made a reference to something that I didn't fully understand or mis-applied to my current situation. But there was another part of me that wanted to just let things blur. I was tired of new things, and I kind of wanted to leave everything behind, outrun it all, escape.

When I tuned back in it was to a pair of warm brown eyes.

"That's where I'm taking you," she said.

"Hogwarts?"

"No," she said, a little amused, a little irritated, but then those resolved into an intensity that I could barely stand up to. "To outrun it all."

What I remember about that night mostly is the smack of the wood in my palm as the broomstick leapt to me, the moon through a distant citadel of clouds, her hair partially covering her face as she turned to me once, laughing as I rose behind her – and the cool air in my face as I discovered for myself the second most wonderful thing in life.

When finally we hovered together, gazing down at the house and grounds of my parents, and as I marveled at how natural it felt to be here quite some distance above it with this … this perfect beauty, quick and strong, thoughtful and fiery - I thought that in the future when I felt I wanted to be alone that would mean alone with her. Her face was silver in the darkness, another moon, improbably close. She looked out into the night, energized but at peace.

"I love this," I said. Words were clumsy, but they were what I had.

"I know."

"We snuck."

"What?"

"We … sneaked out. This was something we could have done during the day, but you wanted to wait until night."

"Yes," she said. Then, after a pause "Would you rather…"

"No, no. I wouldn't rather have anything other than this. I mean, this was perfect, you were perfect, everything is… Ginny, it's more beautiful than anything, almost. I was just wondering about why we're doing this in secret."

Her eyes flicked at me, then away. "Secrets…secrets are good things sometimes. They make you aware of the rest of life, because you see the world at one remove, if that means anything. They give you perspective. There's what everyone else knows, and then there's what you know. I don't know, maybe this isn't making any-"

"I understand," I said.

She paused, not yet looking at me. "Maybe you do. It's the way I learnt to fly a broom, only I was by myself. I would nick one of the brooms from the shed and practice when I was a little girl because my brothers wouldn't teach me. They teased me unmercifully about flying, but I think they just didn't want me to do it because they didn't want me to get hurt or something. Bit silly, really, because I'd be more likely to get hurt if I were rubbish at it. So anyway I surprised them all when I started school and became the youngest Chaser ever on the Hogwarts team. They couldn't figure out how I'd gotten so good at it under their noses. They still don't know, as far as I'm aware. The only person who had any idea, I think, is Lily."

"How so?"

"I think she saw me once. I was nine. I'd plowed into a bush and fallen off the broom, and was walking back to the shed when I saw the back door close and through the window I could just see her head move past. I think she saw me fall, but when she knew I was all right she let me be. She let me handle it.

"It's one of the reasons I love her so much," she finished.

These women. They were killing me.

•

So anyway, she and I were walking together, looking in shop windows and pausing for questions and answers, and I had just thanked her again for taking me out, and generally helping me make sense of everything, and especially for teaching me to fly in secret. I'd said it was beautiful and exciting and that I was glad she had been the one to show me, that it wouldn't have been right with anyone else. She'd said after all I had done that she should be thanking me, and so she did, by kissing my cheek, suddenly but tenderly, like she'd been waiting for a chance and here it was, best grab it. Her scent was dear and close, and I felt for a moment like a shirt on a line, fluttering in the wind.

Then I heard a strange sound, like a cough or maybe a choke, and came back to myself. There was a tall, lanky young man in black robes of some expensive fabric standing a few feet away, beyond a barrel and some crates that were occupied by something that twittered and snapped, alternately. He had strangely pale blond hair, like the color had been drained from it in a way that was not without pain, and he had an unflattering sneer on his face as he eyed Ginny. The sun washed him out, and his skin looked pallid.

"That's just disgusting," he said in a flat voice. "Bad enough someone's making even more Weasleys, now it's happening out in the open."

Ginny spun, furious. "What's disgusting is that you could show your face in public, Malfoy."

"And why should I not?" he returned, his head angled upwards a little, as if he wanted her to see something up his nose. "Pure of blood, wealthy and handsome, scion of one of the _better _wizarding families – I have nothing to be ashamed of. I can't say the same about you, but of course you have no shame, you and this –" I'd stepped beside her – "this person here. I wonder if he knows who he's gotten caught up with –"

For some reason, the glamour charm I had been using to smooth over my forehead had begun to bother me, so I dispensed with it.

That turned out to be the thing that made him stop talking. It was all nonsense to me, but his voice was a little tedious.

His eyes widened as he stared at my forehead.

"You – you're – but you're H – him!"

"He," I said.

My grammatical correction was beyond him at the moment. Many things were fighting for control in him. I was more concerned with Ginny's tension at his presence, and her wand at her side.

Eventually the gabby army won him over. "But surely you must realize… who _she_ is? There are families and families," he said. "She might prove to be a diversion right now, but surely you know you can do much better."

I really couldn't make any sense of what this fellow was saying. "How so?"

Ginny gave me an unreadable look but said nothing.

"It's really a question of status, isn't it?" he said smugly. I didn't know what the smugness was for. "In the house of my father you can have any woman you want. They all come running when one is wealthy enough. There's no reason to settle for whatever comes along."

"Wh – settle how?" I asked. Still way out at sea here. She'd just kissed me. She was beautiful. She was _Ginny_. What didn't he get about this?

He began to cultivate a small frown. "You're from a prominent family. And you're famous. And everyone knows that the Potters have money. Any woman would throw herself at you for a chance at that…"

He was still talking, but I had to have a moment. Any woman would throw herself at me for money? That wasn't true. And she wasn't interested in money. And why had he been disgusted by her kissing me? Maybe I should tune back in, was he saying anything helpful?

"…whatever you want her to, whether she likes it or not, because you are who you are…" he rambled on, and I took another moment away to think – it wasn't as if his voice was compelling in any way. Okay, what do we have? This weird guy is disgusted at a kiss, thinks money is really important, seems to be trying to say Ginny isn't good enough for me, which is, well, stupid, and telling me I should be at his dad's house where women who want money come and do things they don't even like…

Oh! He was just confused. Probably not his fault. I thought I could help.

"…attractive enough for a quick one, if you can stand the hair color –"

"Consensual," I said.

"What?" Ten points from a stranger.

"Consensual. That kiss," I said as I gestured to Ginny, who was a bit bemused.

"I beg your…" he said.

"It's a thing that happens when the interaction is consensual," I explained. Surely he would understand now.

"I don't…"

I was feeling a little sorry for this man. He was a little clueless. I went over to him and placed my hand on his shoulder. "You see," I began, "I didn't pay her to do anything. Right? So it's different than what you're used to at your father's house. Ginny's not the kind of person who can be bought – and honestly, I can't imagine what kind of woman would be like that. Probably not a happy one. We like being together, and she was letting me know."

His head was shaking a little, and his cheeks had gone a little red.

"Surely someone's kissed you without money being involved?" I said. He was really weird. He looked kind of upset.

I had a brainstorm. "Oh, wait – you offered Ginny money and she turned it down, right? Ohhh! So it's not that she's not good enough for me, it's that she's too good for you!" Wow. I sure was glad to have figured all of that out.

He made a snarling sound and backed away from my hand, reaching into his robes for his wand. His hand made it half-way back up before the wand slipped from his fingers, clattering on the cobblestones. It was during one of those curious lulls you sometimes hear in a public place, so its sound was loud and echoing from the tall buildings around us.

He looked at it blankly for a second, then lunged for it and scrabbled to pick it up, pointing it only in my general direction before once again it fell and bounced on the street, this time rolling into the gutter and some muddy-looking fluid.

He stared at me, wild-eyed and a little out of breath. There was really something wrong with him. Muttering, his mouth moist from a bit more spit than strictly necessary, he very gingerly picked his wand up, cradling it in his hands, and began slowly to walk away, pausing every few feet to drop it and pick it up again. We watched him go.

Ginny then turned and looked at me for a moment. Not long enough to hear anything, just a look.

"That boy," she said, "needs to stop thinking with his wand."

She was laughing a moment later. I was still confused, but not entirely.

•

So there's a reason I took a sideways ramble into all of that, but it's uncertain to me now. It'll come to me. All the cars in my train may arrive at different times, but at least they all arrive, and that wasn't the caboose or anything – more like the dining car. In any event, it was a long day restoring that sitting room to its former state. The Weasley men spent an inordinate amount of time talking about how to go about it before Hermione, who had to return to work for a few hours, barked at them as a group for being a headless committee instead of men of action. This stirred their sense of masculinity long enough for them to take some marching orders from my mother, who had them vanish first the rubble and then themselves from her parlor.

Luna wandered out a few minutes later after accepting a hug from me. I was new at it but practice was good, and I liked her. There was a lot to her, and she was brilliant and a little weird, and she was my first friend ever. At least that's how I thought of her, and when I said so to her after hugging her she smiled sunnily, a special thing on her ordinarily peaceful and inscrutable face, she said, "Ginny was mine, and somehow I feel that I've returned her favor."

Ginny also had to leave to go to the hospital and look in on Molly, or her body anyway, so she went upstairs to her rooms, leaving me and my parents standing in a mostly empty room with a dark circle on the ceiling. A series of spells from both of them had diminished it somewhat, but it was still present as a dark brown center with gradations of color ending in the original white of the plaster.

"It's beautiful in its way," my mother said, looking up at it thoughtfully.

"Wouldn't exactly fit on the fridge, would it?" my father said.

"Let's keep it," she said, reaching out for his hand without looking and taking it in hers. I really liked that. She knew where it was - he was waiting for her. I was somehow deeply happy to know that I came from this. "I know it's sentimental, only… Deasil, you know I'm a little jealous of Ginny getting so much of your time." She looked up at the ceiling again. "And energy."

"I'm sorry, I…" I thought for a moment, trying to make sense of my feelings, and then gave it up as a bad job. She was my mother, she would understand. "It's been a lot to take in, and I'm not used to you yet." This came out quickly, and more bluntly than I liked, but there it was. "There's something about her that makes it easy, I guess."

My mother looked at me knowingly, and I felt naked. "I can imagine. It's probably easier to talk to someone you're … attracted to than to parents you never knew about, yeah?"

Right in one. "I need to spend time with you both," I said, "and right now it feels like when I'm looking at the world that we're all sort of looking the same direction, or… well, what it really is is that I feel a little unable to kind of … see you. There are so many things happening and I'm not sure…

"Look, I like you, so _much_, and like is not the right word and I want to feel like I'm _of_ you, but I don't feel like I've earned it, like I belong completely. It's like the thing I want and the thing I have aren't in the same place yet, even if they're the same thing."

"You don't know how to have this," my mother said, and her voice was sorrowful, and I heard how sorry she was about all of this and how she wanted me not to feel the way I did, and it wasn't pity exactly, it was something else I wasn't familiar with.

"We'd like to help you get used to it, " my father said. "It won't be right away, we know that, but we're not in any hurry. We have all of the time there is."

"But I want to hurry. Is that…I mean, I want to … want all of this, and I feel like I should, but I can't make it real yet. But you're both what I, well I was going to say imagined but I haven't imagined it, it's just that you feel very right but I really don't know anything about anything, so what do I know?"

"Are you getting this, Lil?" he said.

"You know I am," she said, a little wistfully, "it's right up my street." I was struck in a strange way by the feminine nature of that term, or how it sounded feminine to me, I mean masculine metaphors seem more, I don't know, external and pokey and intrusive given our masculine metaphorical equipment, or maybe that's just a maleness thing, but there it is, and the street image was homey and womanly and it meant something to me. For a moment my mind flashed to an awareness that she had carried me in her womb for nine months, given birth to me, helped to name me and taken care of me. It felt a small step nearer to being mine than before.

"Yeah, more of that," I said. "That's the stuff."

"Curable by time," she said simply.

I believed her, which felt wonderful.

•

My mother, my sleeping brother and I were in the kitchen together watching my father make me a sandwich. It was a while after lunchtime and catching living rooms on fire is hungry business. And I would have made it myself, but I didn't know where anything was, and besides, it was the first sandwich my dad ever made me, and this is an important thing. Outside of the realm of chefs, there is a firmness, or even a firmament-forming aspect, to the nature of food prepared by fathers. It's more like a house than a sandwich. It's constructed. There are tools and materials. It's like a log cabin built on a hilltop by one bull-headed, bloody-minded man, who was laughed at by the people in town, they called him crazy, but this was a monument to something that he had no name for, a statement of his will, his ability to make and fashion something meaningful from rough and disparate elements.

I think there was turkey on it.

"I think we should talk about your magic," my mother said.

"Okay, what about it?"

"Well," she said, choosing her words, "it's a little unusual. Very special, actually. It's like you."

"Errr…thankyouwhat?"

"What I mean is," she said, smiling, "it's very personal. Very much you. It's not formalized like what we do most of the time, except when we do it by accident."

"Accidents," I said, looking at my feet, "tend to collect around me."

"Well, that's not a bad thing," she said. "Most of magic is like that."

"How?"

"Okay, let's say you want something to happen in the mu - sorry, the non-magical world, like for instance you'd like for your sandwich to fly over here –"

"Not 'til it's done, love," my father said quickly.

"Right, sorry, okay, then, that apple. If you want it to be over here, you have to go get it. Or get someone else to hand it to you. Because it's highly unlikely that it would just fly over and land in your hand."

I remembered a moment in a diner. "Well…all right, but I … go on, sorry."

"Quite alright. The difference between you and someone who doesn't do magic is that for you, it's quite a bit less unlikely. Or maybe it's better to say that it's _merely_ unlikely, but you have a little say in that as a magic-using person. When you cast a spell, you're taking that event from virtually impossible to matter-of-fact. There's a bubble of probability around every object, every molecule, every atom and particle, and with the right spell and a bit of willpower, you collapse the bubble and things – _Accio! _ - come your way." As she said the word and waved her wand, the apple leapt from the counter and smacked into her palm.

"But that wasn't an accident," I said. "You meant that."

"But what's an accident? In this instance it's an unusual event, an unexpected event. Something that should not have happened, give what the nonmagical world expects. If a non-magical person witnessed it, they might think, 'How could that have happened? Apples don't do that. That was impossible. That person couldn't possibly have meant for that to happen. It must have been a freak accident.' And so on. But accidents aren't impossible, or even unlikely depending on how you think about them. They're just things that someone wasn't expecting, or things that are highly unlikely from their point of view."

"Well, I wasn't expecting any of this, and you weren't expecting me, " I said, feeling a bit thick, "so I must be a bit of an accident."

"No," she said, and her voice was round and low, "you were never an accident. You are a product of will in every way. Firstly, because your father and I love each other and wanted for you to be here – we meant for you to come. And secondly, because your will was what allowed you to fight the memory charms and become the mysterious and delightful man you are. No accident."

That thing that I never had, the phantom limb I never possessed, was tingling, painful, but I knew it was there, somewhere. It was all I felt like I could ask for, and maybe all I could take to feel this much of it. Fortunately my mind had an escape route planned. "How come I don't use a wand?"

"Do you want one?"

"Well…no, but yeah. You know, everyone else has one."

She folded her arms and eyed me appraisingly. "And just because everyone has one, you need one too?"

I swallowed. I remembered a boy I saw in a store a few days ago, whining about a game that he wanted because everyone else had one, and felt for a moment a bit childish. I was opening my mouth to defend myself when I saw that she was smirking at me. Shortly thereafter a grin burst out from her like a sail unfurling, and she said, "I used to practice saying things like that, knowing that someday I'd have to say it to one of my own children."

I would have to watch out for this woman. Her presence then, as it would often be, was sharp, like citrus, but sweet as well.

"You don't seem to need a wand, do you," she said, shifting my brother slightly. "What I meant by formality earlier was that most of us use wands to sort of put a frame around magic. The wand is a conductor, it has properties like an antenna, and it allows us to focus our magical intent, along with spell words that also focus our minds on the desired result. You, on the other hand, seem to make things happen around you because you feel a certain way, or you need something."

"Or they just happen, from my point of view. I didn't notice it for a while. I was just fitting in with the moment, kind of being a part of things. Making something complete, I think. Except for…"

"For what?"

"The duffel bag. No idea about that one. I don't think it completed any big picture. That was, well, maybe that was an accident."

"I doubt it," she said, looking at me oddly.

"What?" I lost ten points.

"Right to him, James," she said.

"What on earth are you talking about?" I said, taking a bite of my sandwich.

Oh.

It hadn't been there a second ago.

Dad was still finishing the one he was making, but I was devouring its exact duplicate.

He said, "I'll just have this one myself, shall I?" I really liked him. He wasn't rattled by anything. He had a very even temperament, and it would take a lot to throw him. I felt a great respect for him, a natural respect that comes from understanding and seeing how someone is, no matter what.

But I really did want that sandwich he was making.

"To address the other thing you said, about accidents collecting around you?" he said, turning his shoulders slightly as if to shield the sandwich from me, his first-born. "Think of a winning streak. It's a lump of probability surrounding an athlete or a gambler. Things go their way. Maybe it's difficult to think that about your situation – I wouldn't blame you if you didn't agree. But you have to consider that things –"he looked around to indicate "-are certainly going your way now."

The fireplace roared in the next room, and a voice called out, "Lily, James, is this a bad time for visitors?"

"It's Dumbledore," my mother said to me. "Do try not to ignite anything else, my darling."

"Oh, all right, but he'd better not start anything," I said as we left the kitchen, pausing only as I grabbed my father's sandwich off of the counter. Oh my, it was good. As it would turn out, Ginny was right about things made sweeter by a bit of impropriety. I began to think in a sort of casual way about how it was worth it, especially to me, having had no memories to speak of, to really enjoy the things I experienced, to fill myself up with good things to be made from. Like that sandwich. I really enjoyed the idea of that sandwich becoming part of my bones and muscle, especially because it was made by my father. And maybe that was the point of telling those other two things before continuing in order, because they were special moments to me, whether intimate or goofy or clarifying, and because whenever possible I try to have my dessert first.

Dumbledore was removing ash from himself with his wand when we entered. I noticed two things about him. The first was that his other hand was blackened and shrunken, and I supposed this was his sacrifice he'd mentioned. The second was that he was entirely hairless from his neck up.

I guess he'd realized whom he was dealing with.

"I'd like to say that makes you look younger," I said. Just to set the tone, I guess.

"If nothing else," he said, "it's made me realize that when I smile, the back of my head frowns."

I took that in, and meanwhile was struck by something. It wasn't that his hair was gone. I knew it was there. He was hiding it. This told me that he wanted people to feel something, maybe sorry for him, maybe to not take him seriously. Well, he was about to be poking around in Arthur's head for Molly, and I didn't have a good feeling about that, or him.

"Albus," my mother began, "we were –"

"Come back when you're serious, and when you aren't hiding something," I said abruptly. She looked at me curiously, before glaring at Dumbledore. He initially looked quite angry. I mean I was moving to get between him and my mother and brother before I knew what I was doing. The thing that I found the most alarming was that he transformed that expression into that of a child, caught being naughty. For someone who was supposed to be a great and powerful wizard, he seemed really unbalanced.

"Never mind all that caught-out little kid stuff, either," I said, and I looked him right in the eye. "You've made mistakes before that cost people their lives. Acting like a child will not get you out of it. And that first one never would have gotten that far without your help. So maybe you should work with people instead of trying to impose your will on them. Your record is crap right now."

"What first one?" my mother asked, backing up a little, shielding the baby.

"Grindelwald," Dumbledore said softly. Finally he stopped looking like an old man trying to be young. His eyes seemed to focus on something far off, and then he shook his head. When his gaze returned to mine he looked like he was trying to bring the full effect of a great wizard who had defeated another great yet evil wizard to bear, or that he smelled something funny. Probably the first one, but it sort of rolled past me, as if he were trying to bang a hole in my armor but I didn't have any, or like trying to catch smoke with a fishnet. When I settled my feet and looked back at him, he actually looked surprised.

"You've been different for a little while, haven't you," I said. "It wasn't long ago. Like there's a weight on you, like a mist, and you've been unable to get a hold on yourself. What's happening to you?"

He was silent for almost a minute. My mother had moved back and my father had moved forward, waiting.

When he spoke it was almost chatty-sounding. "There's nothing you can do for them," he said. "Too many cooks spoiling his broth, you see. Now that you've seen it, it must be broken, but you can't do that – I probably couldn't if I tried. No way out, no way back, and no way for them to survive together. In fact - " He almost giggled. "Neither can live while the other survives."

"You're done here," I said. "Whoever you are now."

Apparently someone who's not themselves is easy to spot once you've seen it. I considered myself to be very experienced in this arena. If you're lucky you can even be prepared when they're about to do something bad, like bring a wand up and point it at you. But I didn't know what I could do about it, I didn't know any spells or anything, and the only magic I did was kind of useless, I mean I had no defenses, he was going to do something bad, no stopping it, he would have to do something really stupid for this to –

And he dropped his wand, just like that. Soft sound of its impact in the carpet the only sound in the room.

Wow, I thought, that was lucky.

He seemed to think the exact opposite. He looked at his hand incredulously.

When he bent over to pick it up, this funny thing happened. The rug jerked, and he wound up losing his balance and falling over backwards. My father moved forward, my mother backed out through the door, Dumbledore's feet rose in the air, and with a dull crack the back of his head struck the floor. He gave a strange, nasal cry, glared venomously at me, and vanished.

The rug shook itself, turned around three times and settled down into stillness. I was considering petting it at the moment, but it was wrapped around the abandoned wand.

"Where's Arthur?" I said.

"I'm not sure," my mother said. "Somewhere in the house."

"I think we need to get him and Molly together so we can get them apart, and I think we need Luna and Hermione, and maybe soon?"

"How are we going to help them now?" she said.

I sighed. I'm not really a man of action. More a man of profound inaction. Navel-gazing, wool-gathering, spacing out. But here it was.

"Maybe I can do it," I said.

•

A/N: I know this took a while – life has intruded once again. I think there's something sort of paradigm-shifting about the fact that we have a term for what happens outside of the glowing screen – "IRL".

Yes, it jumps around. It's form as character. I want the reader to know things in a special order, because some things are less important in my story than they are in the JKR books and I wanted to get them out of the way. I also feel that if things are told out of order then the events themselves can be seen more clearly, and the way they interact can be more special.

And if you're wondering what happened to Dumbledore, well, I've told you.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

I found Arthur upstairs, in the bathroom, shaving.

Stuff.

I don't want to talk about it.

Look, there was nothing wrong with it. In fact, I can sort of imagine a situation where it would be necessary, but I don't plan on being around for it.

After the requisite "sorry" and a rapid door slam, I said (under the door) that we needed to go, and it was very important that we do it soon. I opined that the fact that he was taller and quite a bit more manly in appearance would indicate that some things might be happening behind the scenes, and in fact this new need for shaving… things… would probably be another strong indicator. I further postulated that it might be nice for there to be two of them rather than one of him, and that issues of hair growth and gender identity might be sorted out in fairly short order if he could manage to get ready in a few minutes.

There was a silence, followed by a mournful, hollow voice, made so in the way that only a bathroom can.

"We've been together so long, Deasil."

It was a strange life, this.

"I know, Arthur…and Molly." I bowed my head against the door. It was cool against my forehead. "It must be the most intimate thing to be together in…in that way. It's just that … well, I think things are going to get bad if we don't do something soon, and even though I heard that from a complete lunatic I still think it's true. But I need your help to make it better, because I've got to find out from Molly how to fix this, and that means I have to sort of go in and look for it. Do you think that would be all right? I mean, I know I kind of just met her, but I think I've also known her for a long time."

There was no response, nothing that I could hear.

"Look, you two, I know this has to be impossibly hard, but I'm …I'm worried about you. I know I'm not your blood, but you've been my only family as long as I can remember, and I don't … I don't want anything to happen to you. I'd do anything to help you, and I owe you at least that, at the very least that. You gave up so much for me." I closed my eyes and thumped my forehead against the door. "I want to make this right."

The knob turned slowly, and the door opened. I was faced by a pair of knobbly, unusually smooth knees in, well, an abomination of a housecoat. It was the kind of coat that not only should never be seen outside of a house, not even to get the paper in as it would lower property values, but also should perhaps never leave a back bedroom on the third floor. With black velvet drapes. Wool should never have been forced into that shape, and that collection of colors, no, that bad-tempered mob of miscreant colors would have put a blind cave-dwelling fish right off its lunch, whatever it is that they eat, which I imagine is not that savory to begin with.

His hand was on my shoulder. "You've been as good as my own son for many years," he said in a slightly higher voice. "I trust you. We'll go along with you."

"If you trust me…" I said, my voice unsteady with emotion, "…if you really trust me, then you'll take a match to that bloody housecoat."

"Language, dear," he said creakily, but there was a hint of amusement in his voice. "Is it really that awful?"

"As much as it pains me to say it," I said, "It pains me more to look at it."

My head got a bit of a thump, but their hearts were not in it.

"I'll just finish getting ready," he said.

I took the door handle, and began to close it, saying, "You know, Arthur, there will come a time, probably soon…"

"Yes?"

"When you'll regret shaving some of that." I closed the door quickly.

•

I went downstairs, which was kind of fabulous, in the sense that I got to walk down a slightly round staircase to the front room, and if I'd been wearing a flowing gown, not that I took after Arthur but I gained a certain appreciation for that, then I'd have been stunning, or as stunning as a guy like me would be in a flowing gown. Well, maybe we should be abandoning this train of thought, or more like leaping off of this train of thought to an almost certain death that is still more appealing than the sight of me in that gown. But it still felt fabulous – wait a minute, I just want to point out that it's not that I would actually be wearing the dress, but that I wouldn't look good in it, that is at issue here. I mean, Arthur didn't always look like a slab of beef in chiffon – sometimes he really carried it off. Am I getting off the subject? Probably.

When I ended my fabulous walk down the stairs, my mother was talking with a soft-looking man, a lanky, gentle-looking man who held humor in his face like a present he was giving out, but slowly. He had dusty-brown hair and his entire, I mean entire outfit matched it. It was as if his head was trying to hide in plain sight over his body. He paused from a joke he was telling my mother and locked eyes with me as I came closer. It's hard to describe, but compared to the way my mother looked at me sometimes, which was a fierce sort of affinity, his look was warm, inclusive, and knowing. He was someone who knew me as a baby, and who loved my parents. I wanted to know this man.

"Deasil," my mother said, "This is Remus Lupin. He's an old friend of ours."

"Deasil," he said, shaking my hand.

"Remus," I returned in kind.

He looked back and forth between my mother and me and said, "He's got your eyes, all right. But he looks quite a bit like James, too. Trouble-maker?"

"His own special kind," she said.

"Good," he said, turning back to me, mischief playing across his kind face. "Lily thought I might be able to help you with some magic tutoring, if you're interested."

"Yes, definitely. How about a crash course in – what's it called?"

"Legilimency," my mother said, watching my father in the next room fussing over my brother.

"I think we might want to start with something a little simpler," Remus said.

"Well," I said, "I'm pretty good at hearing thoughts already – maybe you could just… think about what you know about it?"

He looked surprised, then thoughtful. "Never tried it that way," he said.

"Moony," my father said, "are you close to that time?"

"No, no, it's not my time of the month just yet."

No way. Totally had me fooled.

"Well, I must say," I said, shaking my head, "and I don't mean this in a bad way – I'm not sure what the good way is, but I mean no harm, anyway, when I say you're the most mannish-looking woman I've ever met. I mean, maybe Arthur wasn't so good at the cross-dressing thing but you're really good."

"Errr… not that 'time-of-the-month'. I'm a …werewolf." It came out as an attempt at being businesslike, as though there were a business where being a werewolf might be expected. But it didn't quite ring true.

"Werewolf?"

"There wolf. There."

"Shut it, James." His manner had changed a little. The mischief had vanished, replaced with rue, and possibly regret.

"Moony, how often do I get to make that joke in front of someone who hasn't heard it before?"

"By now? Never."

"Son," my father said, wandering over to Remus with my little brother, which indicated that this was no problem, "Remus is one of my oldest friends, and the dearest one of all of them. Really. He is intelligent, genteel, and well-read in all things magical. The only thing about him is that once a month he sees the moon and goes all hairy."

"Everybody loves you," I said.

It was a little quiet in there.

"Of course we love him, Deasil –"

"You look like you've got something you want to apologize for," I said, fumbling towards something.

Remus looked at me briefly before casting his eyes down and smiling a little. "You're sharp for someone who just got here," he said.

"Did you choose this life?"

"No," he said, returning his eyes to mine, "but I've chosen to live with it."

"So has everyone else," I said.

He looked a little irritated. "I know everyone has their own set of problems –"

"No. I mean everyone has chosen to live with you."

More silence. I was quite the silence factory. I must have been fabricating it in my sleep. He was examining his shoes again, but that tiny smile returned. "You're like your mother, do you know that? Smart and kind. Different, certainly – but you can't argue with genetics, I suppose."

I felt like the favor was returned. "I'm very happy to meet you," I said.

"Oh, we've met," he said, a little of his manner returning. "I held you when you were a baby, you know. It must be strange, hearing that from people you don't remember."

"A little," I admitted. It was funny. I kept feeling like I had something to live up to, even though I'd only been a little boy, like I needed to act a certain way or else I'd be seen as… I wasn't sure what. I told him this as we prepared to go to the hospital.

"As an impostor," he said softly, so that no one else would hear. "You feel like someone's going to tell you that you don't belong here, right?"

I wasn't used to having the truth gun pointed at me, but there it was. Direct hit. "Pretty much," I said. "Sometimes this feels like it's mine and sometimes it feels like it could never be."

"Stay around a little longer," he said. "I think the scales will tip in your favor."

•

Remus, Ron and I were sitting in a small room inside the hospital. I didn't know who St. Mungo was, and couldn't figure out how a secular culture somehow made rooms for saints. I mean, if magic was around, what would they take for a miracle? Anyway. Remus had agreed to sit there and think about exploratory Legilimency, and I was supposed to sit and listen to him do it. Yeah, that sounded logical. Sometimes the newness and the ludicrous nature of all of this, from my point of view, piled up around me like dirty dishes. I had to hand-wash each one before I could get anywhere. It kind of made sense that I could hear him. My consciousness of a life that now continued to change, rather than being folded in upon itself every day, left me with a vacuum of sorts, an emptiness of actual experience that pressured the world to fill it. And since I had a magical nature, many years of unexpressed magic had built up in me, and made things that were otherwise very difficult to do fairly automatic (for the moment) to the point of being constantly accidental, like Tourette's. Difficult to feel good about my magic when it's like having a garden party around sprinklers that keep turning on.

Remus said, "I'm ready when you are."

I had been holding my head in my hands, and I sat up and stared at him.

I can't describe it, really. The best I can do is to say that it's like hearing someone's voice in your head telling you things that you'd never heard before but that seemed familiar and now here they were, your thoughts, as if you'd come up with them.

It was a few minutes, punctuated by a few much-needed downward glances. Lupin was a good man. But you know, it's hard to walk around even in a good man's head. Someone named Tonks that he kept at arm's length, who had helped him research the more obscure aspects of Legilimency. Amusement mixed with jealousy as he watched James and Lily at school, where he'd first began to study the reading of the mind. And last, unrelated, the sight of thick black hairs puncturing his skin from within, clumping horribly between his knuckles as his fingers shortened and his hand elongated, tearing each tendon against his most desperate will, into a familiar terrible shape.

Someone had made me silent, finally.

"You saw," he said. Gentle and resigned.

"You're afraid of what you might do," I said. There weren't enough sighs. I was in a bed of them, tear-shaped, gray blooms of despair. It took me a moment to remind myself that the despair was not mine. "What would happen if you were to be alone in a room with someone you love when it came over you. That's your nightmare, right? That something horrible would happen, and you would wake up afterwards, when it was too late to stop yourself?"

"Yes."

"I think," I said, as I got to my feet and pulled him up with me, holding his arm stiffly as though I were a marionette, barely able to move myself, "that there is a difference between letting yourself turn into a werewolf, by not taking a potion, and letting yourself feel anything at all."

Something in him shrank away, though he didn't move. I looked him right in the eye.

It's all right to want to protect people from the wolf. But not the man. It's you that you're protecting. Why don't you let someone else help you with that?

I wonder still why it was such a surprise, in a face already gentle and compassionate, to see his eyes fill with tears.

"If you don't need my help anymore," he said, "I have to… to go see someone."

"We'll muddle through," I said. He clasped my arm, firmly, then turned and vanished from the spot.

"Like Fawkes," Ron said.

"Who?"

"Dumbledore's pet phoenix. Not a pet, really, they don't put up with that sort of thing. Every once in a while the bird gets to looking old and decrepit, and then he sort of goes up in a burst of flame, then a new baby Fawkes crawls out of the ashes, good as new. Lupin's been needing to have that broken for him for a long time. Maybe now he'll stop giving Tonks the brush-off. Kind of pointless, really. Bit of a foregone conclusion."

Tonks. Nymphadora. Always those round eyes, no matter what color. All he ever wanted.

"Yeah," I said. "No contest."

"Look," he said, coming around to stand with me, "I know you have a headful from Lupin, but… well, I just wanted to say I … bloody hell, I know you could just get it out of me, but something about that bothers me – I saw how you were looking at him and I'd just as soon – well, I'll just say it. I'm glad you're back with us, mate. I like that Lily and James are so happy, and you brought us back our parents, sort of, and you've woken up my sister and that, so I guess this is… thanks."

His face, open and guileless, smile-lined and freckled. A face you expected to see laughing. At this moment he wasn't.

"Be good to her," he said. "She's my only sister, and we'll all stomp you if she gets hurt. One after the other, and maybe all at once."

I tried not to think of what it seemed like I could do with magic. I tried very hard to think of his love for his sister who'd been through so much, as he had, and of the youngest boy whose only ally growing up was at times surely Ginny.

"I'd hold still for it," I said. He nodded.

•

What I wasn't prepared for was – well, actually, I wasn't prepared for any of this, but what I was least prepared for was what I saw in that hospital room.

Arthur was seated in a dark wood chair next to a bed, holding the hand of the woman who lay there. She was very still. Not still like sleep, or still like at peace.

Still like she wasn't there.

The way he looked at her face was unbearable. Longing, deep affection, and loss, loss greater than anything I could imagine in my short life. He had been with her, they had walked together and loved and had children and then in a moment it had all disappeared. Replaced by something infinitely closer and further away at the same time, a compulsive existence, a crushing together of selves, each thought split, of two minds about everything.

To fight the one you love the most for your own identity is a horror, but to surrender yourself so that the other might live is a tragic, rending nightmare.

It was the face of a woman I knew parts of but had never met, exactly, that I was drawn to. For someone her age there were precious few lines on her brow, and not much around the eyes. She had continued to age but her body had not experienced the events in life that leave a mark, and looked strangely smooth and delicate, as if made of paper, a hollow thing, a fragile thing.

"I look dead," Arthur said.

I moved to his side.

"I haven't seen myself in so long, I don't look familiar."

"Time's passed," I said.

"Without me," he said.

After a moment of silence he said, "Or me."

"At least we've been together," he said.

"That's what I always wanted," he said.

"Is that what made this happen?" he said.

"Yes, and … and I … I knew it wasn't right. When we married, I knew … we were meant to be together."

I hated to interrupt, but it seemed like the thing to do. "Molly, you arranged this, didn't you."

"After all I had lost, Deasil, all I had to lose. Even if I had to die. There had to be order."

I thought for a moment. "Call her, will you?"

Arthur looked up at me, finally. So tired, stretched thin from the pressure. His eyes focused momentarily on me before wandering, pulled away by a universe divided by two. Identity rippled across his face like dappled sunlight, and he sighed deeply.

"Pella," he said.

There was a loud crack in the room, which made me want to jump into my own shirt pocket. I suppose I sometimes startle a little easy. I was looking for the first time at a person who wasn't human.

She was very small, no more than two and a half feet tall. Her skin was pale and wrinkled, but finely so. Her large ears drooped towards her back and her eyes were luminous and yellowed. She was dressed in a short linen tunic and sandals. Her shoulders were lean but strong.

She looked at Molly's body, then at Arthur, then reached tentatively, gently towards Arthur, and adjusted his collar, which was a little askew. Then she placed her thin fingers over his.

"It wasn't right," Arthur said.

"I know," Pella said, in a perfect, high voice. It made me think of the sound that a wet finger makes on a wineglass rim.

"He didn't care, he would have destroyed everything. My family, everyone. All…"

"You prevented it," Pella said. "You saved the child. Both of them."

"But what has she done to herself?" Arthur said. His chin dropped and his free hand came up to press haphazardly against his face.

"She has the knowledge," Pella said, her voice airy and worn-through. "She has put it away with herself, in its place."

She looked at me over her shoulder, her eyes bright. "Along with a part of you. You can find this place."

I actually gulped. It was her knowing look. I felt it in my backside, if that makes any sense, and why start now. I wanted to talk with her for a long time, but later. For the moment, I felt galvanized and ready. I heard my own voice from a distance, as though it had started without me. "Molly, look at me now."

•

I close the door. They're off to a meeting of the order. Such good people, so full of enthusiasm and humor even in the face of these horrors, these awful times. I don't see how I could be that way. Even in my best moments I still see my brothers and when I think of my children I can't help but feel my chest tighten. Not my boys. Not my boys, and not the girl I'm carrying inside me. But it's all children, isn't it? Their little boy, who feels like one of my own even with that dark hair of his. He's a sweet one, rarely cries at all. Not like those squalling twins. My life. The din was quite overwhelming at times.

He's fussing. I don't know why. None of the usual things work. He's standing up in his little crib, holding the bars with his little hands. I don't quite want to leave him, so I send a Patronus to Arthur. Not that I feel incapable of handling one fussy baby, not after six of my own. I just want to know ours are all right. It's curious, but when I hear one baby cry, I always feel the need to know if any of mine are. Maybe I just want to give comfort when I can. And get some as well. My husband. This dear man, my dear man. No one knows what I know. I remember him laughing about all the practices we had to have to put seven quaffles through the hoop. And his private voice, the one only I have heard, telling me how dedicated he is to practice.

Merlin. That noise. The front door must have exploded. Death Eaters or worse. My babies. And this one. What can I do, it's only me. Fabian, Gideon, they were so strong, how can I possibly…

Wait a moment.

If he's mine. But they are all mine. I see all children in each one. If he's mine. If I can hide him. I can hide him behind myself. I can make him unknowable to them, but he must be mine, our blood must be shared –

Noises downstairs. Ignore them. A sharp small pain in my thumb, and then a quick silencing spell on the boy. This will hurt him a little, but it's for his own good. Our hands together, slick, mine is shaking. I whisper some words, remembering Lily, James, Remus, Sirius, my boys, my unborn, and I hope that what I have to give is enough. It must be enough. I love this boy like he was my own. No. He is my own. We share blood now. I can place myself between him and harm. My wand arm twists and points at his face. There is a flash.

The door splinters. It's so much worse. He's come for the boy, why the boy, what could he have to do with this. Doesn't matter. That ugly thing, red-eyed and less than human. He will not be allowed to. He's an aberration, a destroyer of life, of all that's right. There will be order. His wand comes up. My unborn girl. You'll be safe. You'll be safe.

There will be order.

Dead green light. A last, fluttering vision – my husband's face, twisted in fear and horror, as he stands in the doorway. Then only green, and the darkness.

My home. I need to be with him, more than anything I have ever felt.

And then I am.

•

Bill is holding Ron, having just taken him from Charlie. He smiles a lot when holding the baby. He loves his brothers more easily than any of them seem to, maybe because he's the oldest. Straight-backed and solid, but a little wilder than he lets on. He thinks it's a secret, perhaps having forgotten that I was a young man not too long ago. His looks at his brothers are looks I once gave to my brothers, when I thought my father wasn't looking.

Molly is off at the Potters', watching their boy while they go to another meeting. She needs to know she's doing something, contributing in some way, though it's too dangerous for her to be more active. When something needs doing, she won't wait until she's asked, and surely when there's a child involved she comes on the jump. Six, and soon to be seven, and yet there will never be enough children for my beloved, who has enough love, and worry, for every child there is. I'm still surprised at how much love I can have for her, after all this time – but it's been easy, really. She's an easy woman to love. All I had to do was know her.

The twins are following Percy around, waving their arms and making some incomprehensible gestures that may be intended to look like spell-casting. Percy is reasonably sure that they can't cast spells yet and is trying to ignore them, or at least not dignify their antics with a response. I'm not sure where he learned this strategy of ignoring from – he's only five - but it seems to make those two little terrors even more enthusiastic. I know he'll figure it out soon enough.

A glowing patronus enters the room – it's Molly's wolverine. A momentary thrill of fear passes through me until I hear her voice, not frightened, just – that little tone she saves for me when she wants an indulgence, a small comfort. I smile and call Bill over. You'll have to mind the boys, and Charles, you'll help, won't you. If the twins get too persistent, get them ready for bed, and I'll be back in a few minutes. Only – where have they gotten off to? I spend a few minutes looking for them, finding Percy by himself in the kitchen, and go upstairs into their room, walk down the stairs again and hear a floorboard creak behind me, and there they are, two grinning little angels creeping behind me. I grab them both and hug them amidst squeals of laughter. I love all of my boys. A moment of admonishment that they pay very little attention to, and then I say to them, "Daddy's going to go 'pop' now." Their eyes grow wide and they perch a few steps above the living room floor, watching. I give them a Weasley grin, a grand bow, and snap my fingers.

Though apparating is never pleasant, I distract myself by imagining their faces and their delight at the extra-loud crack I leave them with.

I appear just inside the gate to the – the door, the front door is missing. Burnt smell of spell discharge. Molly. I can't panic. Wood fragments inside. A voice, a scream from above. I throw myself up the stairs. I can't let anything happen to her. Pale, ugly light from a room down the hallway. A hissing sound like laughter. My legs are heavy. Nightmare. I reach the doorway and see her, see her in green light. Horror in her face, crushing something in me, and then her eyes focus on me, and soften. Don't do this. Don't, we're supposed to be together, we belong –

She falls.

The dark figure moves. The child cries. Wand. Green. Flash.

Something burns my face. After image of a black shadow, like a knife, shattering.

I'm alone in here, with H- with the boy. He whimpers. In front of him, on the floor, is Molly. Molly's body. Slack. Empty, not her anymore. She's always so full of – life. Not any more. My life. My only. No, this is not right. She was meant for me. We are supposed to be TOGETHER

Oh.

Hello, love.

Am I mad?

_We'll see. _

•

I fall back, sweating. I feel dizzy. Full. Too much them, too little me. I'm stumbling, I hit something and it falls, there are hands on me but I don't want them. I don't want to touch anyone. What am I doing? Sitting. Something wet and slippery in my hands. It's my head. I'm soaked in sweat. Good, I can feel that. It's my feeling. Only mine. Just mine.

A growl escapes me and I thrash back to my feet. "You wouldn't believe it," I say, breathing hard, my lungs, my chest. "You wouldn't believe it." I'm returning. "I'm returning," I say aloud. "Somebody … somebody write this down. Write it all down."

Things appear out of nowhere. I start talking. People start writing.

•

We see things that we are not immediately conscious of all of the time. You might walk right past the bundle of important papers you left on the table specifically so you wouldn't forget them and then get to your meeting and as you sit in the chair have a vision of them appear in your head, you remember walking by them but you didn't act on it – or maybe a note was left to you by your significant other and it was in plain view on the fridge but you coasted by as if in a dream and went down to get into your car to go to an important meeting and find it up on blocks, the car, not the meeting, that wouldn't make any sense, but as you're staring in shock at your car you remember first the red pen and the emphatic shape of the writing and then a few words come in, "wheels" and "gone" and "bastards", and then the whole thing edges into your consciousness, where it had been all along, though. Oh, you mean _that_ seven foot rabbit.

By the way, I don't really go to meetings, and I don't have a car, and I would hope my other would wake me and tell me my car had been violated rather than let me lie in and write me a note, so I don't know where all of that came from. Ditto vis-à-vis the rabbit.

This train of thought is actually about how things that I didn't see when I was remembering Molly and Arthur, but that became apparent after someone in the room came to her senses, threw the paper and quill over her shoulder, and extracted my memory of their memories from my twitching head. Bright woman, Hermione. Although I must say she was initially swayed by my authoritative-sounding ranting. After playing these memories back in a bowl like the one we had back at the house, complete with appropriate gasping by everyone present except Arthur, who sat still and looked at nothing (and I at him, having seen these movies enough), Hermione went to a corner of the room and huddled with Pella, who seemed a little taken aback with Hermione's intensity, but was gamely interpreting what I'd seen and engaging in a whispered debate.

"The magic was in the doing of it," I heard her say in her clear sopranino. Hermione shook her head and began another theory, only to be interrupted by Pella once again. "It was in the doing, not the spell. It is not for me to say the way. It is what she did by trying to do."

My mother spoke from Arthur's side. "Why can you not say how it was done? Molly needs your help!"

"It is her way," the elf said. "She must be… no, I can not."

I became aware of Luna in the doorway, nodding her head and beaming.

"But surely…" my mother said.

Beside her Arthur – who was now a head taller than her – swayed on his feet slightly. "Very close in here," he said unsteadily.

"Someone open a window," Hermione offered.

"Not that kind of close," I said.

Luna was staring at the elf, taking her in and still nodding.

"This seems to be reaching some sort of crisis point," my mother said.

"Please," Hermione said, her voice rising, "there must be a way you can help us!"

Ron's voice suddenly, clear in the room. "What is it, Luna?"

I like Luna, because she too can silence a room. But it doesn't bother her, while it makes me a little uncomfortable. She said, "She can't help us."

"What?" I said.

"Why not?" Hermione was almost shouting.

"Because," Luna said softly, "Molly's spell was intended to hide H–Deasil from Voldemort, to make him unplottable, in a way. Has anyone noticed that we can't say the name he was born with?"

"What?" I said.

"She's right," my father said after a pause. "I thought I was being respectful of, you know, what he's grown up being called, but I came to realize when I was talking to Lily about him, that his name, it's sort of – on the tip of my tongue." He shook his head. "Merlin, did I live with him for four years and only call him 'Son'?"

"No," my mother said, "you also called him 'sport'."

"What?" I said.

"So it's the same spell that hid Molly, until – until someone went looking for her…" Hermione said. "Someone who wasn't in her mind when she cast the spell."

"But why wouldn't the spell allow his family to know him?" my mother asked. "We knew her thoughts, we knew what she was doing…"

"What did they name this boy?" Luna said.

"Deasil, we all know that."

"Why?"

"Because … because," Ron said, "it was something she didn't get right!"

"Huh?" I said.

"She went to cast the spell," he said, "and mucked it up a bit. It didn't hide him from Voldemort, it hid parts of him from us. Everyone she thought of, including herself."

"She didn't think of me," Luna said. "So it seemed obvious to me."

I thought it was still a leap, and that Luna was pretty sharp.

"Then why is he alive? Why did he survive the killing curse?" Hermione said.

"I know that," my mother said. She sighed and looked at me. "It was something I'd looked into shortly after he was born. Molly and I had talked about it a great deal. It's an old magic, basically a blood magic, that she forced by will and blood to work."

"That was the spell she cast?" I asked.

"No," she said. "She mingled your blood so she could have the right to hide you from Voldemort. Her spell went awry, but in the act of placing herself between you and harm, she invoked this old magic. She could be struck by a spell, even killed by it, but you were now protected." Her eyes glistened as she looked at Molly's body. "Her desire to sacrifice herself for you saved you."

"It was in the doing, not the spell," Pella said softly.

"What?" I said.

"And when Voldemort cast the killing curse at her she inadvertently hid herself away -" Hermione said.

"In the deepest center of her life," Luna said.

"As she had learned from Pella," my mother said.

"All right, people," I said. "Summary, please, before my head explodes. Sorry, bad choice of words. Sorry. But are we saying…what are we saying? Dad?"

"Okay." He squared his shoulders. "Molly shared blood with you so she could use some blood protection to protect you - in addition to Ginny, who was already protected - from Voldemort, and also attempted to use an elfish spell to make you unknowable to him, to hide the knowledge of you away, so he wouldn't think you were named in the prophecy and perhaps leave, I suppose. But she made a habitual error in her wand movement, causing the spell to go a little differently - in fact instead of you being unknowable to all but your family, it meant that you were partially unknowable to only your family. Not her fault, honest error, really, but in any event Voldemort cast the killing curse at her, and she appears to have hidden herself away, also using elfish magic similar, I think to –"

"To the magic elves use to make themselves invisible in a house," Hermione blurted, then looked embarrassed. Pella nodded reluctantly.

"Quite so," my father said.

I found myself moving to stand between Arthur and Molly. My mind was dull, and sluggish, and wanted to be away from all of this, and I was down fifty points, but there was just this one last turn of the key. I grasped his hand and placed it over hers, as Pella approached, with care and composure, to reverse something she was now able to see.

"She hid inside her home," I said. "You are her home, Arthur."

There was a warm feeling, and kind of like being wrung out like a towel, but in a good way. It was very bright in the room. I could see the blue of veins under Ginny's skin, and my father's hair stood on end. Lots of electricity. It was all – a lot. It was very much. And I must say, that in some goofy way I loved everyone in the room very much, and they weren't originally my feelings, but someone was helping me out, lending them to me, so I could see.

The energy in the room ebbed like a filament in a bulb. There were lots of redheads here, looking at the two people beside me, one standing and one lying down, all of them wide-eyed and still. I looked down at Arthur and Molly and saw what was different.

Her eyes were just barely open.

From a long distance away she came in, like a long slow tide. Her gaze flickered upward to Arthur, then settled on me. Miraculous lines appeared gradually around her eyes. She was smiling.

When she spoke it was with a voice of paper and wool, coarse with disuse.

"Harry," she said. "Your name is Harry."

•

"You were right," Arthur said a while later. Molly was sleeping after a long series of restorative charms and potions had been applied. All of the Weasleys but Bill were off eating and the room was otherwise clear of all but the three of us, her sleeping, him standing and maybe wishing he had brought better flats. His eldest son had gone to get him some clothes to wear and possibly get some distance from the weirdness of it all. Arthur held himself differently, as you do when you grow past six feet, and there was an unfamiliar yet charming undercurrent of whimsy in him, along with a completely unexpected philosophical bent which the crowd in his head must have pushed to the rear. His manner had gone from, well, befitting a man in a dress to more traditionally fatherly, and it was enough to make me wonder about myself that I found this utterly natural. But he was a caring man, a good man, and this showed even through his years of befuddlement and double-occupancy.

"It was mostly Luna, I think," I said.

"Well, I suppose she is quite brilliant, and we do owe her and everyone else a great deal - but that isn't what I meant. And especially Pella." She had recognized the elfish "secret-keeper" spell that Molly had somewhat cast, now that it was unhidden from us, and reversed it. "By the way, young man, do you fancy my only daughter?"

Uh.

"Fancy her?" Nice stall, play the dumb American.

"Find her attractive? Want to get to know her? Like her?"

"Errr…not wasting any time being Dad, are you?"

"No time to waste. Not wasting any time blowing up the living room, are you?"

"I suppose not. We just skipped right to that advanced stage of …whatever it is. No hand-holding – directly to explosives."

His gaze was direct, and no-nonsense, and kind at the same time. "I know I'm a bit out of practice at fathering… but you must be feeling a lot of things right now, and some of them may be… pleasant, if even a bit overwhelming…"

"What about you? You've been on hold for fourteen years, and looking very good for a man of your advanced age in a dress made for a much smaller woman. As if time never passed for you, really."

"But it did, my lad, it did. Ah, but that was a deft change of subject, wasn't it?" he said, and his face grew still. "You haven't answered my question, young man. Do you… fancy… my only daughter?"

"I, uh," I said. "Okay. She's beautiful, and smart, which isn't surprising, given her mother, and yes, I want to get to know her more, that could go on for a while, maybe a really long time, I mean there's a lot to her, and yes, I like her, if that's what this roaring, bubbling happy thing I'm bathing in is. And even if you had another daughter, it would still be her." But I have no idea what any of this entails, and that feels ridiculous to me, though I'm not sure why. "And I don't know how any of this is supposed to work, but I have a feeling that there is a large group of red-headed men who have some ideas about how this is all supposed to go. Slowly, at a great distance, with me in shackles and her in unbreakable long overalls. Baggy unbreakable overalls. With a large padlock on them, that only they have the keys to. At least that's what I was getting from Charlie. And constant surveillance. Though I think she'd pound anyone for trying to tell her what to do with her life, and I'd have to be on her side there, even though I understand the male, uh, protective thing, but she wouldn't take that very well, because I think her brothers want for her to be okay so much that they think it's their right to intervene without her agreement, or anyway, that's what Charlie thinks, and I know, because he looked at me earlier and I heard him grumbling about it, even though Percy had shown them how wrong that was - so, uh…what were we talking about?"

"You were right," he said again, shifting a bit, and it seemed he was a little uncomfortable.

"About what?"

"The shaving. It does itch a bit."

•

It was rare that I had time to myself. Usually one of the matches was with me, making sure I stayed out of trouble or explaining what things did when you touched them and why it wasn't always a good idea, but I was a bit inquisitive, and my mind was hungry for input, and I lacked common sense, which is a hell of a mixture. I was wandering through the halls of the hospital and wondering if I'd seen any of this part of the building before and if I were in fact completely lost, when I opened a door to what looked like a lounge and realized I'd made a huge circle.

Ginny was pacing. Big steps, every other tile, very methodical. I watched three circuits before I thought of saying anything, because she was wonderful to watch, and I wanted to see her without anyone else making her be anything else.

Five circuits later, she saw me and shrieked. I remained still, but the couch and lamp were very alarmed.

"Knock, whistle, call, clear your throat, throw up a flare, anything, just don't bloody sneak up on me," she said, and it got me, I mean I was seriously going to sneak up on her now at every opportunity. Yes, it was wrong. Irresistibly, beautifully wrong.

"Sorry," I said, trying for contriteness, " I didn't know this cell was occupied." Not trying that hard, obviously.

"May as well put me in one," she said. "I'm more beside myself than Mum and Dad."

I had to laugh a little at that. "What's up your mind?" I said.

She gave me a very special look that said, I'm not going to find you in any way charming now, even though I do.

"You seem…" I searched for a term. "Preoccupied."

"What gave it away? Was it my dashing out of the room when Mum woke up? That never seems to come across the way I want it to. So open to misinterpretation. Someone might think I was a bit thrown by the situation, couldn't handle it and turned tail and ran like a little – coward." She slowed down as I took her hand in mine and squeezed it gently.

"You're not a coward."

"No," she said, "you're not a coward. All of the things you've had thrown at you and you're still there. I've only –"

"You've only just seen your mother awake for the first time in seventeen years."

"Put it like that, why don't you."

"How do you feel?"

She took her hand back, slowly. Like she didn't want to, but whatever she had, she didn't want to get any on me.

"I want to feel happy," she said, looking at her hands. "I wanted her to just hug me and – fix everything. But now that this thing I've dreamed of my whole life is here, all my stupid brain can do is think of how mad I am she's been gone all this time. This was supposed to make everything okay, and now I know it won't, that it's still up to me, and I … well, I just hate it. I hate the whole thing."

"Wait a minute," I said. "What's broken? What needs to be fixed? You grew up, you've survived lots of things, you're here. You're complete. I know you aren't happy about everything that got you here, but that's all any of us gets – you know, we're born, things happen, we are who we are, right? And she did her best, as you know. She did what she could."

She put her hand to her forehead, her hair a red curtain over her features. "I know, I know. She did what she could, and it was to save you, and that helps, I mean lately when I'm thinking that I wish I had known her _at all _when I was growing up and I get mad at her for leaving me … leaving _us_," she said, chiding herself, "I also think that you lived because of her, that she protected you, and that makes it easier." She glanced at me before walking towards the window and fiddling with a curtain that, though it didn't really need adjustment, appeared to appreciate the attention. She stopped before it got serious. "And she made sure I was safe somehow, I mean she beat the killing curse for me, so I want to, you know, thank her or something. I keep imagining saying to her, 'so, good job about the saving me from death bit, it's just that I'm furious with you because I didn't get to grow up with you, other than all of the talking to you I did, but that was a little one-sided, wasn't it, so it didn't count – though it did mean a lot to me at the time, I mean for a soulless shell of a woman she was quite the good listener." She closed her eyes. "Yes, she's a bit conflicted, isn't she."

"Remember something, Ginny – you've been thinking about this for a lot longer than she has. You might have a bit of a pileup there, and all she'll want is to see her daughter. Maybe slow it to a trickle to start out with, you know?"

She sighed, and I thought she was going to accept it. Silly me. When her face came around to mine it was angry. "You were…listening to me, weren't you."

Say no. "Yes, but –"

"I know, I know – I'm bloody shouting it from the rooftops to you. No matter what I do, you hear everything that's in my head –"

"Not everything, only what –"

"Yeah, only what I tell you, right? Only maybe I don't bloody want to tell you everything all the time, I mean how am I supposed to have any – " She stopped, then looked horrified, then covered her face.

Not a word, Deasil. "Mystery?" Oh, well.

"You heard that. Brilliant."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I can try to stop, wait - why mystery?"

"I can't have any pride around you," she said, and her voice had as much pleading as anger in it.

"I told you, I can just not listen, I won't hear any –"

"You already _know everything important_, though, don't you?" she said, her eyes bright with tears. "I don't have to say anything, I don't get to decide what I tell you, I don't get to keep any secrets from you, _any! _Nothing at all!"

"Ginny, what do you want from me? I'll tell you anything, show you anything, and we'll be even. How bad would it be, to not have to say a word, to not worry about what to tell me, to not have to keep secrets for _once_? Would I be so bad to be the keeper of your secrets?"

She was breathing heavily, and her hair surrounded her downturned face. "And what … what secrets do you have that no one knows? You can remember only a week at most – what have you got to hide?"

I thought about it. There was really only one thing I hadn't said to anyone, anyone being her, and it was because it was big and sudden and very close to my core if not filling it entirely, and because I didn't know how she would take it, but I hadn't been here very long and in retrospect now I look back on that moment and think that I had everything to lose, but the way I was thinking then it seemed wrong to not be truthful, world-breakingly wrong, because at the start of anything truth makes it solid and anything else makes it weak, and it wasn't so much bravery at facing something but the relief of not avoiding it that drove me, stumbling and gasping, into the place I was.

"I don't have a thing to hide from you," I said, deciding it. "Look – I'm new here, to being alive and in a family and around other people and myself and you and – and there is _nothing_ like being around you, I mean there's words and fire and broomsticks and eyes and flowers that you smell like that I've never even seen and shouting and absolutely the best hug imaginable, better than anything, better than that tart we had for dessert the other night or flying or anything, though flying with you is pretty spectacular too, and the drapes dance for you and the rugs beg from you and things kind of explode every once in a while and I, I think it's the best thing ever, all of it, and it's my doing, the drapes and the rugs, I couldn't stop it if I tried to because when you're in front of me it's just all I can do to keep from bursting or something, and you know I've now met a few women, not including my mother, and they're all great people except one or two of them but it's just … not … the same, at all, I mean there was fire, things _caught on fire_," – she was laughing, and it filled me and fueled me " – and I heard you and it wasn't that I tried to, it was that it hurt not to, and I know I haven't been here long but I know I'm supposed to hear you and you're supposed to hear me, even if it comes out like this, all … crazy and spilling over, because this feels so big and I don't know, there must be a word, or something to describe this, but I don't know it, and I don't know what to say but I just want to say it so badly…"

Oh, chocolate, dark wood, fire mane, cheeks of cream, every detail vivid and exquisite, like it was when I saw her for the first time, only couched now in knowing and great affinity. The shine on her face stirred me, my hands wanted hers, and I felt my entire body awakening and announcing itself to me, and when she came close it was almost painful, the closer she was, until she closed the distance and put her arms around my neck, dizzyingly near to me, and all I could see were those eyes.

"I'll never tell," she said breathlessly. "We're even."

At that moment Hermione entered the room, saw us, dropped an armload of scrolls and made a sound like a balloon being violated.

We sprang apart, and a waiting-room chair and a privacy screen separated as well. It must have appeared to be quite the pas-de-quatre. If there is such a thing. Anyway, I defy anyone to describe a clinch involving said people and furniture in a few short graceful words, except perhaps for the French who probably already have another beautiful phrase for it.

"Ginny," Hermione said steadily, "I need a word."

"Glarfia," I said.

"N – what?" Ten points.

"How's that for a word?"

"Lovely," she said, getting her steam back. "Ginny, if you wouldn't mind." She turned and left the room.

Ginny looked after her, then she looked at me, regretfully.

I said, "If it's a little wrong, that makes it sweeter."

A grin that seemed unbreakable appeared on her face. "That's pretty wise."

"You go and see what she wants. I'm just going to go pour myself into a cup or something."

Another giggle, priceless and eternally sweet. She followed after Hermione.

I sat down somewhere, not sure where, aware I'd broken a sweat, and feeling like I'd just run a hundred miles in galoshes.

"She's a willful young woman," my mother said from the doorway behind me, incidentally startling me from my boneless state, so startling I thought my hair was going to pop out of my skin. I smacked my hand over my eyes and took a deep breath before turning to look at her.

"She's very strong," she went on, observing me, "stronger than she knows mostly, and also not as strong as she thinks she is. Do you know what I mean?"

"I think so. She got really strong protecting herself, but she's vulnerable inside."

Her lips pursed into a faint smile. "Well done, darling, and what does this mean for you?"

"That I take great care to respect her strength and … and … mum, you're watching me like a hawk. I know she's vulnerable. You spent far more time raising her than me, and I know you want to protect her, and I do too, but maybe in a different way."

She looked so wounded that I had to remember what I said, and then I smacked my head again. "That came out completely wrong," I said quickly.

She sighed, and for the first time I saw a tear roll down her cheek. "You didn't say anything wrong. I'm only – I'm so sorry you weren't here with us all this time. Here I am giving my own son a talking to as if you were a stranger, when nothing could be further from the truth."

"Well, it's funny, though," I said, moving over to her. "I know I'm made of you, and I come from you, and I think we understand each other, we just have virtually no history to back it up." I placed an arm around her shoulders.

"You're right, you know," she said, putting her head on my shoulder. "You're as familiar as daylight to me, but it's the strangest thing. I know you're mine, and you came from me, but I missed so much of what made you into who you are and it's strange to find you so familiar in spite of that."

"Well…I'm glad it's you."

She squeezed me with one arm. "I'm glad it's you…_finally_."

"As if I was taking my time or something."

"Well, you did, didn't you? And you come back with that accent…"

"I don't have an … it's all of you people!"

We shared a laugh, finally. I needed it. So much turnover in this world. I was trying to remind myself that this was a strange time, and their world was changing in some ways as much as mine was. And for a moment there, I had the first glimpse of a curious feeling. Mr. Accident, Mr. Unconscious, Mr. Awakening Sleeper. This seemed like it was my time – what better time could I have come into?

The feeling was the beginning of belonging.

•

A/N: My apologies for this chapter taking so long. And a note of gratitude to Phil and NotACat for checking in on me. I'm still alive. I think about the story all of the time but of late I'd had little time to do anything about it. If it's any comfort, it is the longest chapter yet. Thanks to Jules for the phrase "What's up your mind?" When she gets mad she's even more gorgeous. Also thanks to my faithful readers and kind reviewers. It makes it all worthwhile. Please review!


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Things work themselves out. People say that. They don't know what they're talking about. Oh, sure, things work themselves out if you turn your back on them, in the way that if someone throws a baseball at your face and you close your eyes and say, well, things will happen as they're meant to, then you may be meant to have a broken nose because you lack the will to duck. Things will happen on their own if you stand back, sometimes, and sometimes they won't, I mean this won't write itself if I stand back, though I hear there are quills that do it for you, but then it's not me doing it, and that's the point, isn't it?

In India and Nepal a long time ago a belief system was put together around many ideas, among which are the concepts of impermanence and dissatisfaction – that since the nature of everything around us is impermanent, and since the pleasure experienced from attaining a desire is transitory, one might better spend one's time not being attached to the outcome of things or the satisfaction of fleeting desires, and maybe where possible reduce the number of these desires – you know, you can't control everything, so try to stop wanting to, and do you really need all of those shoes? Well, I think that's noble, and also practical in daily use, and might make you live longer due to less stressing about who's going to win at Wimbledon, because you can't really do anything about it that doesn't involve kidnapping or a large sum of money or a trained python or what have you.

On the other hand, it's interesting to note that this belief system is a purely non-magical one, and that it developed at the same time as a completely separate and of necessity mostly isolated magical community, and the general viewpoint of this second group of people was something like, "Well, actually, we can affect the outcome of virtually anything, but we can see why you might want to approach things in that way, and because this tends to make you folks less ornery, we're good with that." This is more or less how I feel about it. I like magic, even though I'm happily ignorant of how it works, because it's all about doing things. Something needs doing, you do it. You can step forward, get your hands a little dirty, and all of a sudden things are the way you want them to be.

Hermione tries to do that without magic. She sees something that she thinks is wrong, and through a torrent of words and highly personalized logic she attempts to beat it into submission. Apparently that was what she was doing elsewhere in the hospital with Ginny. I was thinking about how the words "Ginny" and "submission" didn't seem to go together, and that if "beat" were involved it would surely be a beating that was directed away from her rather than towards her, when the door she'd exited opened, and Remus entered the room with a young man about my age. He was tall, had dark hair, and was handsome, and all of this made for a good impression. What ruined it was the very haunted expression on his face. He looked like he'd been told that everything he thought was wrong, that his life's purpose had been taken from him, or that someone was going to kill him very soon, or at least that something he'd thought was long gone was actually about to revisit him with terrible force.

Funny.

"Which is it?" Remus asked me.

"Which is what?"

"I'm going to introduce you. What do you want to answer to?"

"What would make the most sense, given the context?"

He thought for a moment.

"Harry Potter, this is Neville Longbottom."

I was at a loss. So many thoughts at once. I was trying to remember it all, but my head was much fuller than it had been, at least when I first came back to England, and now pathways that had been clear were convoluted. It was like stumbling into a dark room, trying to figure out what was in it, and I was hoping to miss the wading pool of tapioca entirely. Neville Longbottom. His parents were friends of my parents. There was something wrong with them. I found myself completely horrified.

I could not remember what had happened to them. But I suspected that it was my fault. And I wasn't sure what he'd gone through, but I was certain it had been lousy.

How I was going to get through this upcoming conversation was beyond me.

"I…I suppose you don't know who I am," he said.

Memory returning to me sometimes feels like being struck by a sheet of water, wet head to toe all at once.

"You saved Ginny," I said. "In the Chamber."

He looked a little surprised.

"You killed Tom," I said.

There was the problem.

His eyes closed. "I thought I had. Until you returned."

I was thinking to myself that I wanted to be direct with him, but I didn't want to look him in the eye somehow. I was actually a little scared of what I would see, but not sure why that was. So I settled for looking at Remus as I said, "I wonder if…if you would tell me what happened."

Neville sighed. "Merlin. It's been written so many times by so many people that it's a bit strange for me to actually tell it. It's been spread out so thin…and they never tell it like it was." He sounded bitter as he said, "Nobody cares what it felt like. They just want to hear the story."

"Ginny knows what that's like," I said.

His mouth tightened into a small smile. "Yeah, she does. She's been really good about listening to me complain about it. Actually I seem to complain about it because she's listening. But no one else would quite understand, would they."

"Maybe not like you," I said. "But Ron told me some of what it was like having people all over him after it was done, like they all wanted to celebrate with him, and he said that all he wanted was to get a good meal and a bath and fly on his broom, alone."

Neville considered this. "I spent a lot of time in my greenhouse, when I could, when they'd bloody leave me alone. Just tending to little things for a change, doing something that I … that wasn't horrible."

"So things were getting back to normal," I said, "and then I turned up alive."

Ruining everything.

I know I didn't say it out loud, but the room sort of sagged a little.

Neville's head came up. "Look, Harry," he said. "It's good that you're alive. Your family missed you. So many people were lost forever – it's good to get one back. It means that…that there's hope. If that side gets one back, then, so does ours."

Oof.

I was truly of many minds at that moment. Let's see. This Neville guy was really made of good stuff. Really heroic, if you ask me. I mean, in the real sense. Something needed doing and he did it. He even hated it and he still did it. He surely knew it would hurt him after and he still did it. And he went through so much, only to find out it wasn't over with after all, and his parents were tortured into insanity, and both of those things were dead-centered on me, and yet he found good in it. I was feeling very small at the moment. What else? He was apparently known as the Chosen One who'd killed Tom Riddle, lionized by the public at large, and now I show up to say Tom's only partially dead. Slightly dead. Only a mild case of deadness that'll clear up shortly. A sort of twenty-four-hour mortality. Some antibiotics and it'll just run its course. Oh, so even though he risked his life for everyone, it didn't really, you know, count. Because I wasn't dead. If I were dead the world would be safe.

I kept coming back to that.

"So – " I said, then paused.

"What if I walk up to him with a hand grenade in my pocket and pull out the pin? Wouldn't that fix everything?"

He looked horrified. Remus shook his head.

"Honestly," the werewolf said, "do you think it's a good idea to come back to your parents and then leave them again permanently?"

"Remus, I don't know what a good idea is. I ruined everything by being alive. I made everyone's suffering for nothing, I made his life, his struggle, completely pointless –"

That black and white grid rapidly approaching me was the floor. I addressed it with my face.

When I could see things other than red and blue blobs, some of them were Ginny Weasley. She was ready, as I could tell from her hand being up and swinging back, to smack me again. It was maybe the blow, or the surprise, but my mind was a little fuzzy. I couldn't seem to not think she was amazing, even when she'd served me up a dose of smack. There was a tiny bit of me thinking that things would be hard in the future if I continued to think she was beautiful no matter what she did. And not just a little beautiful. Her mouth formed an exquisite red slash, like the swipe of a sword, and her eyes, reflecting the light from the window, were a fierce silver. She surely could split the world in two, I thought as I attempted to regain my footing and find at least a little indignation in my heart, and did very poorly at both.

I think Remus and Neville were standing back a little.

"It's a good thing we're in a hospital, Potter," she said, "because you'll want to have your bloody head examined."

"I –"

"One word, _one word_ about Neville's life being pointless and your dim little lamp will go out and stay out. He is my friend, and he saved my life, and he saved all of us while you were on your forgetful little holiday, so you don't know a bloody thing about it."

There was a silence.

"It-"

"There is no excuse for that whinging self-pitying crap coming out of you. The people who lived through the second war know what suffering is, not you. You never lost anyone you loved, you never had to stand up to someone you knew could kill you with a thought, you never put yourself between the ones you care about and evil so that they could live. Neville is what answers to 'hero' in the wizarding world, and don't you forget it."

"He knows that," Neville said quietly.

"What?" she said.

"He knows," he said again. "Remus told me about how he's a bit of a legilimens and occlumens. He was looking at me while we were talking, and I got a bit of what he's thinking. He's not pitying himself, he's sorry for the way that I feel."

She was slowed down a little by the tone of her friend. "What do you mean – how do you feel?"

"Scared," he said plainly. "I thought it was all over. I guess it's not. I thought I was chosen to be a hero, and it turns out I wasn't – he was. I've done the worst thing I can imagine, and it wasn't enough. It did some good, I know, and I'm proud of having survived it, but I'm – I can't be proud of doing it, because it was horrible. And that vile creature is going to come back, and he's going to want to kill me first."

Neville paused and looked at me as he said, "He _knows_."

Ginny looked quite torn. I suppose she was thinking about the fact that she wasn't the only person whose thoughts could be heard. Maybe also that she'd only heard part of a conversation and come in swinging. Maybe that she might have a bit of an issue with her temper.

I'm guessing, anyway. She sure wasn't looking at me.

When she did look at me, her cheeks were deep red, and her voice was tremulous as she said, "Well, you just watch what you say to my friend, regardless."

"I thought you were supposed to be my healer," I said.

"Well, I'm not," she said.

"What?" I was just throwing points away.

"Well, that's what I was talking to Hermione about, wasn't it?" she said, trying to sound impatient with me. "I recused myself. Conflict of interest." Christmas came early, and twice. She was helping me up, but not all the way up, so her forehead was even with mine. Her eyes were closed, and she leaned forward until our heads were touching. I could hear her breathing. She whispered, "I know I'm wrong, I know I'm an idiot, just don't make me say it out loud, and if you're feeling forgetful any, maybe this could just all sort of go away?"

I thought to myself that if I lived a thousand years, that in my satellite home injected with tubes and wires and having thought-movies streamed into my brain as I watch what remains of the nation-states blast each other into neutrinos, I would still remember her closeness, the sweet humidity of her breath, her lashes against her cheeks.

"You said that out loud," I whispered.

"Oh, bugger."

•

Neville, Ginny, Remus and I had all settled back down after I'd had a little spellwork done on my cheek so it wouldn't look like I was smuggling tubesocks but poorly. She wasn't quite looking at me, and I'd catch her shaking her head once in a while, like she was trying to free a hornet that had gotten stuck in there.

Neville was an easy speaker, even though he was quiet. He had started out as a shy boy and ended up as a quiet young man with a healthy stillness that I liked. He just wasn't likely to burst out with something weird, and I could use a bit of that. It was soothing, I have to say. I'd traded a possible kiss, and I mean one that was possibly going to be the best one ever, though admittedly perhaps my first, for a smack upside the head, and they were from the same person. That Ginny. She wasn't one to show how she felt, was she. I'd really have to stay sharp to see if there was something on her mind.

Neville was telling me about potatoes. He made it interesting. He told me about how they were a good example of why some things should not be done with magic. A long time ago, in the mid eighteen-hundreds, a very bright witch did some research into fertility charms, distilling them from larger ceremonies that had been performed seasonally by early magic-using people. She found that by casting these on her potato patch or whatever he said the ground was you grew potatoes in, there was a word he used and I can't remember it, but it was like if you called it a pride of lions or a murder of crows or a gaggle of geese, but potatoes, anyway I can't remember it and I don't remember everything anyway, but if she cast it on the place where she grew her potatoes that she could get often four times the yield that she did ordinarily, that is to say she would get a yield four times more often. Naturally this was a huge breakthrough and soon people all around the British Isles, who were inclined to, were swimming in potatoes. This was fine for a few years, until someone noticed that entire crops of potatoes were spontaneously turning up dead or riddled with disease, and gradually most of the magical potato crops and many of the non-magical ones had been utterly destroyed. People figured, well, we'll just grow something else, then – but nothing would grow in that ground. What became obvious after a while was that the use of magic is not without its cost in energy, and that the very life force that was stimulated by the fertility charms was drawn from too deeply, so that the potatoes that grew were of a less and less robust nature and prone to various kinds of bacterial problems, and also that the ground had had its nutrients removed from it so rapidly that nothing was able to replenish it. The bacteria became more common and spread to non-magical crops, the ground was useless, and a very bright witch was all of a sudden not very popular anymore, though, having no ability to see what the consequences of her actions might be, she was a little bit of a sympathetic character to me.

I began to think about my accidental magic bursts, and how they seemed to me now to have been caused by unexpressed magic from my absent-minded days. In those moments, a sort of magic-boosting effect would occur, in which everything engaged in a magical process would gain a bit of power. I wondered how many of those I had in me before I became either normal or fallow like the famine-earth, as they'd called it.

The potatoes story was a good palate-cleanser for me. Even though I managed to find a down-side where I lost all my magical abilities, it got my mind clear of a few things. I felt like I wanted to ask Neville about what happened with Tom, but I was a little hesitant to do it because he'd looked so miserable before. But it was why he was here, and reluctantly I had to accept that - I couldn't shy away from it if he wasn't.

During a lull in conversation I looked him right in the eye. I thought, "take a look around. See who I am." He looked surprised for a moment, then nodded.

I found myself remembering things from the recent past – the living room burning up, my first apparation, the darning egg, Arthur about halfway out of his drag, Ron grinning at Hermione, Luna's questions for Minerva McGonagall, Dumbledore's creepy little-kid act, Ginny very close to me, Ginny dashing up the stairs, Ginny laughing at something George said, Ginny telling me about the Chamber…

Neville's eyes grew wide, then thoughtful. He looked down, and I wondered if he wanted to keep his thoughts to himself, that maybe he didn't like what he saw and had made some probably deserved judgment about my character, and how could I blame him, he was the real thing and I didn't even know where I –

He was clearly smiling.

When he looked back up at me, what I heard was, "She took forever to talk about that with me. And I was there."

I nodded myself and then said, "Do people drink coffee in the wizard world or is it just enchanted pumpkin juice or something?"

Ginny looked like I'd just bought her a car. In the sense that she couldn't drive and had no use for one and wasn't entirely sure about why she would want one.

"No, just the juice," she said. It was the first thing she'd said in a little while, and I have to say that I actually missed hearing her voice, I mean it had been a while, I guess, and what on earth…

"Well, what do you drink as a sort of pick-me-up?"

"Besides tea?"

"Wait a moment," I said. "You can turn a man's leg wooden and ride house-cleaning tools around, but you haven't discovered coffee?" That gave me an idea, but we won't talk about it yet.

"That sounds worse than it is," Remus said.

"You have no idea," I said. "Once you've had a good cup of coffee in the morning, you won't want to get up without it."

"Sounds like it's an addictive substance," Ginny said skeptically.

"Well, of course it is, that's why it's fun. Besides, it's full of antioxidants and…and other things that you haven't heard of because you don't use _science_."

"Science is over-rated," she said.

"It is if you don't understand it."

"All right, Mr. Smart Science Man, why don't you just use dumb old magic to turn this chair into a goat and then I'll tell you what happened scientifically. Deal?"

The next sound was a bleat, followed by a squeal and a thud.

She glared balefully up at me from the black and white tile.

"It's a nice floor," I said. "I was there just recently."

"I'm not…even going to ask who taught you to do that," she said, "…because no one did."

"Right," I said. I couldn't tell you what I did, but there that goat was.

"I suppose you want the scientific version of what happened," she said.

"You did promise," Neville said softly. She swiveled her head slowly to him like a gun turret finding a new target. Having faced a dark lord in the past, he was unimpressed, so she came back to me.

"Right then." She did the mental equivalent of hitching up her trousers and took a deep breath. "So the molly-cools…they changed their order around and filled in the – the bits were there wasn't enough chair to make goat with…and then they animated and bang! There you go."

"The what changed their order?"

"Molly – er – mollycules."

"Filled in the bits."

"Yeah."

"My, my. How very scientific sounding," I said. "One might actually be fooled into thinking you have any idea what you're talking about."

Her eyes narrowed.

I waited.

Her cheek twitched.

I remained still.

Then a giggle escaped her and we all laughed. Well, on the outside I was laughing, but on the inside I was twisted up like an orange peel. That giggle. Now I had to try to make her do that all the time. Between getting her to giggle and making her furious, both for my own delight and amusement, it was going to be a dynamic relationship.

If we had a "relationship".

Suddenly I wanted to think about my impending death struggle a bit more. It seemed safe by contrast. I couldn't say why, but I thought maybe it had to do with the fact that she was so appealing to me in spite of the fact that she'd just laid me out on the floor. The term "cognitive dissonance" floated across my mind like a tumbleweed before a gunfight. I wasn't sure where I'd heard it before, but was fairly sure it hadn't been in the magic-using world. This thought was lost fairly rapidly – I had more important things to do.

I glanced at Remus and he abruptly began asking Ginny about her healing track and how long she expected for it to continue. When I turned back to Neville he nodded slightly and appeared to steel himself.

Okay, I thought. Time to meet the enemy.

•

What I'd been waiting for. The undeniable moment. So important, so crucial to this. All of my nights without sleep, my days of training, pushing myself, turning my body into a form I didn't recognize, a tool, soft boy edges burned away and replaced with what I hoped were soldier's muscles. Dragging out a sword, hating the weight, but using it every day. Keeping it to myself, but people noticed. Ron, Ginny, but both Weasleys letting me be, which they knew how to do. Luna, but she saw everything, seeing without watching, knowing why without asking, the furthest-away and closest person I know. And the worst, a few days before it was time, that vapid Romilda, who said, "Is that really Longbottom, has he changed the cut of his robes?" A girl I once thought was beautiful and misunderstood, before I knew how to talk to anyone, but whom I could now see as a surface-dweller, a skimmer, floating on a ribbon of tension above the real things, the whole world below her. Stung, though – a small bit of contempt for myself, hating the fact that I'd wanted, just a little, to be noticed by her. A brief and unhappy moment of feeling like I've wasted my time, sweating and straining and even moments of crying by myself when my muscles were too sore to move, fighting my Gran, Snape, Malfoy, my fear, so that this foolish girl can continue to be blind to me. But I will this to pass. I have to keep clear, so that she will have the freedom to do what she will, so that she won't live in fear because of her father, distant and oblivious, who married a Muggle woman he could control and marked his daughter as an enemy to purebloods.

It's not her fault, and that's why I have to act.

One day a few summers ago I was visiting the old Weasley house, and Bill chanced to take me back to the shed, asking for my help with something I've forgotten. He was building something, a rocking-chair, and in a moment while I waited for him I saw how the chair back was bent, a length of wood warped around a curve and clamped firmly in place. He had soaked the board so that it would not crack and it was forced into its shape, unnatural and yet useful. His father's hammer and saws hung behind it on pegboard, and I noticed the wear of the grips, hand-shaped, from years of hard use. It was a meaningful moment for me, but as time has passed, I now no longer know whether to see myself as the wood, twisted for a new purpose, or the hammer, a simple tool with a simple meaning, or whether the only "I" now is the clamp, forcing myself into a different shape, and my body no longer belongs to me. Dumbledore has been supportive, and truthful when he thought it was best, but I have come to believe that perhaps I am all of these things to him, and that in his eyes I am here only to fulfill a prophecy, that a woodworker doesn't think of what the hammer feels, or what the wood wants. He chose to tell me about the prophecy when I was visiting my parents, saying he'd kept it from me long enough, but I later felt that he had waited until I was there with them, to maybe make me feel it more.

I know he is a man driven by results, or more specifically what he can cause to happen, and there is a part of me that appreciates this, that has faith in it, because I know that I would not have been able to decide to do this on my own. It helps to have something undeniable at my back. Something that I can not escape. He told me that I have to prepare, and he told a little lie, saying that I would always have people around to help me, that I will not be alone in this fight. He said that he believed that the diary that possessed Ginny was a horcrux, a horrible artifact that contained a piece of the monster's soul, that others existed but that when all of them were found, that he would be mortal again, just a man, and that it was only a man that I would have to face.

In this, too, he was less than truthful.

I was not alone for most of it. When Ron, Ginny, Hermione and Luna found out about the existence of the horcruxes, they threw themselves into learning all that they could about them and figuring out where they might be. One night when I'd been unable to sleep, fearing that I could not do any of this and that the world had no hope if I was their savior, Hermione had come running into our darkened dormitory, tripping on Ron's quidditch gear and barking her shins before bouncing up and pulling me out of bed. She'd paused only briefly to berate Ron on his living habits before blurting out that Luna figured that the horcruxes would likely be icons of the school founders or something close to him, and also guessed that James and Lily's son had been one. Ron was immediately awake and pounding me on the back, saying, "You see, Nev? We can beat this! We can beat him!"

Dumbledore had never spoken to me about hope, but now I had some. And I got it from friends my Gran said that I would never have. And they were willing to go with me as far as they could, and sometimes farther. Ginny much later made it her mission to find the Ravenclaw diadem and, after disappearing for three days and nights, came stomping into the common room, covered in dust and burns and a little blood, and threw a smoking piece of metal at my feet with great finality. Through her disheveled appearance I could see a sort of grim satisfaction in her expression, as she said, "I owed you this one." I remember bowing my head, what that felt like, wrong and hurtful, not being used to this or knowing how to react. She marched up close to me, looked me in the eyes and said, "I still think I should be thanking you, but you can start with thanking me."

I did, and she nodded before heading for the showers.

The others were found, accounted for or assumed destroyed, in the case of the Potter boy, who'd been abducted by the traitor Sirius Black as a gift for his master. All but one – the snake Nagini, which Ron reckoned served as bodyguard and familiar and is the only creature its master would trust. I know that if I can kill the snake, the worst of it will be over.

I find the snake in Malfoy Manor. It has been left there in a cage, because Ron's plan has worked. He said we should unbalance the enemy by showing him a destroyed horcrux and then draw him out with a target to attack. We decided on Hufflepuff's cup, which Luna and I had retrieved, sustaining serious burns in the process, from the vault of the Lestranges, with the help of a goblin panel who agreed that for their crimes against my family that the contents of the vault rightfully belonged to me. We know that the ruined and shattered cup will draw him to the now-empty school to recover the remaining artifacts that he can.

I stun the few Death Eaters that remain to guard the doors of darkened mansion, a part of me dimly registering that this would have been unimaginable to me a few years earlier. I think that maybe I want to be able to feel proud, but I have learned something from my grandmother, that no one should thank you for doing what you are supposed to do, and pride is a hollow thing, something that does not belong in me. I make my way to the great room, listening to my breathing, trying to slow it. Fire for the snake, the sword for the man. The rugs are animated with scenes of torture and destruction, and if it's horrible for me to walk upon them, shouldn't it be for those who live here? Are they so different from us that this is not a horror, or is even a pleasure to them? What kind of people can they be? This thought all of a sudden shakes me, makes my limbs stiff with fear. I do not understand them, can not understand them, and this frightens me deeply. Who are they? What are they?

Then, just outside the door to the room, I encounter a tapestry. It has a vaguely medieval flatness to it, but there is something in it that flares in front of me with a terrible clarity. Two wizards, their wands trained on a man and woman, the couple curled on the ground, their arms splayed out in agony, the scene never ending, always in motion, their suffering continuous, eternal.

I know what those people are now.

The one man in the room is bent unnaturally around a column by the force of my spell before he can raise his wand against me. In this moment, I am both hammer and clamp.

I advance upon the cage. Deep shimmering green and black, and two yellow eyes, seeing me but not knowing truly what I have become. I wonder if I can simply take the snake away in its cage, set it free in a jungle somewhere, where it can merely be a snake and not something a man has made it. But there it is, the unavoidable truth, that it is a vessel, holding a shard of a monster's soul, and I imagine it as a sliver of obsidian, deep inside the head of the animal.

This is where I must be to get through this. An undeniable moment.

Fire for the snake.

I leave the manor a burning wreck.

At my school, though it doesn't feel like it's mine anymore. Just a place I have to be to serve a purpose. The night is quiet. They have not come yet. No dark mark, no destruction. They're so obvious in the most ugly way. We are supposed to tremble at their passing. I don't believe at this moment that I have any trembling left in my body. I move rapidly up to Dumbledore's office, where he has left me James' invisibility cloak. The room is otherwise empty. I manage a sound that I want to be a laugh but is more a ragged cough. This passive shield is all that I have to protect me. This is what you've given me, old man, after all I have done to escape my shell, my shyness, my own invisibility. A place to hide.

The group of students that I trained unwillingly for this day are hidden on the grounds at Dumbledore's request, in case this all goes wrong, if I am weak and stupid and I die, so that the few who believe this monster has returned can fight him, and maybe die as well. The prophecy says I'm the only one who can do this. It all seems so futile. Why are they here? Why aren't they at home with their families? If I succeed they won't be needed, the Death Eaters will run, or if they stay long enough to kill me, maybe that wouldn't be tragic. If I fail – they would at least have a little more time with the ones they love. And I'll be gone anyway, beyond caring. No, I hate these thoughts, and they won't help. I can stop saying this to myself. I learned a long time ago, when I'd hated myself for not fighting back against Malfoy, against Snape or my grandmother, that I could silence the clamor, pull away, remove myself from the moment. I wrap myself in the cloak and once more become invisible.

I wait just outside the gate. I know they will approach directly. He is too arrogant not to. When they begin to approach from the forest, I let out a harsh breath. It's like relief. I wonder if I can trust myself, if I'm going to just give in so that it can all be over, if I'm dead already. But as they get nearer, my heartbeats are moving my whole body with their force, and I know there is something inside me that lives, that has to live. The pale snake-faced monster, surrounded by hooded and masked figures, is within ten feet of me when I throw off the cloak and raise my wand.

With a gesture from him so small I barely notice it, my wand leaves my hand and whistles through the cool air.

He throws his arms up wide, a wand in each hand, and turns his head back to his followers, shouting, "Is this what they have brought to defeat me?" There are laughs, but then it all stops, I see it. This gift and curse. The thing I can not escape. The undeniable moment.

His throat. My sword.

I throw it but I don't see it fly. It will be true or I will have failed, and either way I don't think I can watch. My arm still extended, my body bowed as if in deference to him. It will be the last bow I give to anyone, either way. Silence. Then a roar, and the scattered implosions of pressure from apparation. I look up slowly. He's falling, pulled forward by the weight of the blade in his throat, red eyes widened in shock, mouth open but no sound, though I think I can distinguish, over the screaming people around me, a faint hissing.

He strikes the ground and the sword is driven further by the weight of his body, and this is worse, worse than anything, as his hands twitch, his feet rattle, as the cord is severed, and this can't, I can't take it back, no matter who or what he is, I can't stop seeing, will never stop seeing.

Even in death, he has taken from me. He will always have won.

•

Neville, I heard myself say to him. Fucking hell.

"Language!" Hermione's voice was shrill.

I turned around, slowly.

"Too fucking right. What the fuck was I thinking. Let me make sure the world doesn't fall the fuck apart because I said the f-word. Just shut the fuck up for a moment. Just give me a fucking second."

Obviously I was a little out of it. I hadn't heard her come in. But you know, I was a little out of sorts. A little cranky. A little horrified, and humbled, and awed, and "gosh" wasn't going to cover it.

"And what the hell do you do in the Unspeakable department? Try to decide what people can speak or not?"

"All right, D," Ron said, not entirely unamused. "Go a little easy, she doesn't know what you've been doing."

I liked Ron. He clearly had experience dealing with unreasonable people. Me, her, didn't matter. I liked him plenty. I figured he would be better at sorting this out than me. With apologetic looks at Ginny and Neville, I thought of my parents' house. Then I made a hole in the room and pulled it shut after me.

•

I want to skip ahead for a moment. I mean, so you know, I went home and moped and a few days later did something dumb to cheer myself up. But I don't like that I left, and I don't even like that I was harsh with Hermione, who means well or at least thinks she does as long as "well" is something defined only by Hermione. So I want to tell you about another time I was rude but it worked out better. It was a week later, after I'd met that weird guy in Diagon Alley. Things had progressed with that Ginny person I've been mentioning a bit, and I won't talk about that yet, because some things need to be in order.

But I can tell you what I did to cheer myself up. I was wondering if I could turn things into other things, and then if I could turn magic things into other magic things and if they would still work. I was wondering this because I saw Ron watching a Quidditch rerun on a pair of magic binoculars and started asking him questions about brooms. Like mostly weren't they a little uncomfortable to sit on. He didn't want to be bothered, so I wound up out by the shed looking for a broom. I found one that looked as though it hadn't been used in ages, and after a few minutes of hard thinking, I made it into something that to me was far more sensible.

Anyway, flash forward to a few weeks later after I'd learned to fly on a broom, and imagine a similar scene to the first night I'd flown. Clear night, stealthy knock at my window, meeting at the back door, under trees and then over them, and this vision, her hair shimmering with moonlight and her eyes deep with mystery, looking me up and down as I sat, at ease and graceful, upon my broom.

Only take the word "broom" out and substitute "vacuum cleaner".

It's at this point that I should explain how complex a woman Ginny is – that something could make her laugh hard enough to fall off her broom, which in turn made her furious at me (while falling) for doing that to her, and a bit breathless and… something I couldn't identify, when I caught her a few feet from the ground, so close that the power cord was dangling in the grass. She looked up at me in a funny way before I set her down. I wouldn't know what that had been until much later, but I have another story to tell, and I promised that I would, so here goes. Before the vacuum cleaner, after the weirdo.

I was back in the Alley, owl-shopping, and I believed I'd found my girl. She was a brown owl with yellow eyes and she wouldn't stop looking at me. The salesman had told me that she was a good-natured thing, just had a bit of a wobbly time of it in the air if he were to be completely honest, and he demonstrated by tying a package to her leg and asking her to fly it straight across the room to another perch. She flapped her wings gracefully, then launched herself into the air and immediately made a left out through the open window.

"It's just her aim, really," he said, "she just has a… a sort of tendency, if you follow me…"

"A little move to the left," I said.

"I know she's not the most-"

"I'll take her. We'll meet in the middle."

Now as I wandered out into the street with the owl in her cage, I said to her, "Now, you know I have to name you appropriately."

The owl did something I'd never seen before. She rolled her eyes.

"You know already, right?"

A little screech confirmed it.

"Come on, Widdershins is a lovely name."

She gazed at me, unblinking.

"It's as lovely as Deasil, so don't give me that look. We're in this together."

Abruptly there was a large Ron in my path where there had previously been none.

"There you are, mate," he said, a little breathlessly.

"And you," I said, thinking, why would apparating make one out-of-breath?

"Nice owl. Come on, I need your help."

"What is it?"

"Ginny and Mum are having a bit of a…"

"What about?"

"You."

"Where?"

"James and Lily's. You'll want to –"

I'd already bitten the apple. I appeared in the foyer, but I could hear the two of them going at it very clearly in the kitchen. It seemed a little early on for there to be a fight, but Molly had been taking her restoration as a call to play fourteen years' worth of catch-up on all of the issues she found with her children. This had been irking everyone, me included, for a little while, but it had been fairly innocuous until now.

As I approached, I heard Ginny's voice raised.

"I told Michael it was over, he's just not taking it well."

"And why exactly was it such a shock to him?"

"He thought things were going a different way than they were."

"This is exactly what I'm talking about. A man will come to expect things from a woman if she is too free with herself, you can hardly –"

"Too _free_ with herself? You mean that just because I kissed him or a little more that he is allowed to think –"

"What do you mean by "a little more"? You can't just throw yourself at a man and expect him to –"

Ron had inched past me into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of tea. The man's calm was unbendable. A few other Weasleys were lurking in the background, as if they'd been trapped by a sudden squall and were waiting for the rain to stop.

"I didn't throw myself at him, at the time it was a mutual attraction, and I don't see what-"

"Obviously you don't see anything wrong with this, because you obviously don't care what other people think of you, though you might be at least a little concerned about what they think of your family –"

Well, this wasn't going well. No one was listening to anybody, really, no more than a few words before set the other one off again. This was much worse than their first meeting, which I haven't mentioned but which was actually rather tender. I'll get to it. Anyway, the problem here was that Molly was getting extremely personal in her attacks while Ginny was currently only defending herself, which worried me, because I'd gathered about Ginny that she only refrained from attacking in a fight when she was truly vulnerable. That was my trigger. Ginny vulnerable. Deasil protect.

"Are you calling your daughter a slut?" I said.

A bit of Ron's tea abandoned him hurriedly and struck out on its own.

"I – "

"Your daughter. Who you just met. Has less influence on what you think of her than these mysterious 'people' who we don't know and whom I suspect live only in your head, where apparently there is now a lot of extra room. I mean, if all of you could fit in there with Arthur, and he's clearly a smart man, however did you fit, unless you just aren't that damned smart? When the hell do you think we're living? 1776? And who do you think raised her? I'll tell you who did. My mother and father did. And they did a great job, and then she took it from there and made herself into this just about perfect woman, upon whom you now see fit to dump some neurotic pseudo-morality from the dark ages of arranged marriages and dowries and blessings on all the male babies only. This is a Weasley woman! The family has been waiting for her for seven generations, and she did not come through all this grief and fighting and turmoil and war to have you call her some garbage from before any of us were born. And I read up about this. A woman who looked at a man wrong could be forced to wear a scarlet letter and have her entire life ruined by that ignorant shit. It's not a cautionary tale about what a woman should do to keep out of trouble, it's an illustration of how stupid people used to be, and aren't we glad that we're not like that anymore? That we don't treat strangers in our community, much less our own flesh and blood, in such a barbaric way? Honestly, Mudbloods, Muggles, Squibs, scarlet women, what don't you people have a hurtful term for? And what, then, is the word for you?"

Her face was really quite red. The teapot was quivering on the table beside her, and I could see she was gathering up a head of steam to say "how dare you" or something like that, so before she could I said, "Maybe you should bring _order_ to your thoughts before you speak."

My friend, silence.

She turned and walked out of the room.

Arthur just shook his head.

George said, "That was bloody brilliant."

Ginny said, "'Just about perfect'?"

Ron put a hand up to hide his smile.

After a moment Arthur turned to me with a weary look on his face. "Well, D, I have to say I might have handled that a little differently. I know we need to make sure that she's in the here and now, but she has been through a lot, and she really is a bit rusty at being a mother, or anyone individual really. And I really must take issue with something that you said. I won't have you walk around saying things that aren't true about my daughter."

The older boys' mouths were open. Arthur moved his tall frame over to Ginny's diminutive one, and he looked what seemed like a long way down to her upturned face.

"You can leave out the 'just about'," he said softly as he touched her cheek. Her eyes filled with tears, and she flung herself at him, hugging him tightly.

"I'm grateful for you," she said into his robe.

"Well,' he said, "I'm grateful for you too. All of you. And let us not forget that it's easy to look sweet when the person up before you was a little angry, right, Weasleys?"

There were a few nods around the room. After she released him, he unhurriedly turned towards the direction Molly had gone. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go find my wife."

After he left, Ginny turned to me and I could see she was trying to have no expression at all when she said, "I can defend myself, you know."

"I have no doubt," I said, also trying to stay neutral. "I was just speaking my mind."

"I had quite a snappy comeback planned for her."

"I'll bet that you did."

"It would have put her in her place."

"Surely."

"You did take away my chance to speak for myself."

"I see that I did," I said. "I have only one excuse."

"Which is?"

"I know Molly very well, I think, and I'm certain it's not the last time she'll say something like that. But it's more than likely that the next few times she does that I won't be around – that is to say, she won't do it in front of me – and I wanted it to be unquestionably clear with her that I was on your side."

Her face remained carefully impassive. "I see."

This was getting a little hard for me to sustain. I wanted to tell a joke or something.

"But if that was inappropriate of me, and if I have prevented you from asserting yourself, I will promise to try not to do so in the future when I can."

She was fairly close to me now as she said, "That wasn't an apology."

"Not so much, no."

She spent a timeless time just looking into my eyes, not smiling or frowning.

"All right, then," she said.

That thing with the glowing might have been happening – I didn't really notice.

•

A/N: This took a little while longer than I thought – but Neville deserved his due, and I wanted the scarlet rant in there as well. It does matter that he tells the story out of order – really. And we'll get to Dumbledore next time, I promise. But I still maintain that I told you what's going on with him. Thanks to Phil for his inadvertent naming of Deasil's owl, to Freja for her tone which I hope to have successfully borrowed in spots, and to Jules for her perspective and filter and other-half-ness. Still open to suggestions as to the name of the Potter baby. Thanks so much to my faithful readers and reviewers. I like to think of this chapter as sort of a classic Japanese poem, _kanshi_, which often has four lines, the first two lines going together, the third line stating a new idea and the fourth joining all three lines - except that this isn't a poem, has more than four lines, and indeed more than three main ideas which are in no way joined together by the last one. And by the way, the word _kanshi_ means "Chinese poem" in Japanese. Other than that the resemblance is quite eerie.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Was life one long cavalcade of facing things you're obligated to, preparing to do so, or out-and-out avoiding doing so? I know I should answer that, and I'll get to it, but I don't feel like it right now.

Ginny had sat at the table across from me and was helping herself to tea.

It occurred to me that I was in a roomful of Weasleys, and that I'd just shouted down their mother. Maybe they had had enough time to grow attached to her, I mean a few days isn't much but she looked like them, had carried them around in her and all that, Ginny had her temper and Ron had her eyes, and I really felt a little exposed, if you want to know the truth.

So I said, "Any of you matchsticks about to light up?"

Charlie stirred. "Not me, I rather enjoyed that. Besides, she raised _you_, not us. You probably have more of a right to have a go at her than we do."

"He did the right thing," Ginny said. Her face was placid.

"I always dreamed of having a mum," Fred said, "so that one day I could put her in her place that way."

Clearly he would joke about anything.

"Well –" I said, not expecting this response. "Ron?"

I turned to my friend. I'd been thinking of him in that way for a while. He wasn't overly talkative – he chose his words as if he were playing chess, which he'd said he liked to do when he was younger. He'd stopped playing after the war but was still a man who thought, took care with his actions. I thought that that was what got him through the war, and what made him good for Hermione as well. That woman was impulsive. I'd made things right with her since my outburst at the hospital but I felt that he had every right to be miffed at me, but he wasn't. There were things I didn't know about him, and I knew I wasn't going to take that knowledge from him, because he didn't like that idea, and I could respect that. I would have to be content to let that one unfold. And that was okay with me.

"I'd say you were right," he said. "Surprised me, but you were right. Mum's a little off and I don't like anyone saying bad things about my little sister – even though I know she can take care of herself…" This sounded like a commonly-added phrase, and I was not surprised. "Mum needs to know there are limits – that she can feel as mixed up as she wants, but she can't take that out on us. Better for her in the long run – she sounded a bit hysterical to me, and the less of that she can do, the better."

Well, okay then.

"You might want to consider not making a habit of that," Ron said. "Telling people how they ought to be … bit of a burden really."

Bit of a …

"Everyone gets it wrong most of the time, you see," he said. "Long as no one's getting hurt… it might be best to let them make their own mistakes and leave the big ones to the Aurors."

After a pause, he said, "As long as their mistakes aren't pointed at my sister, anyway."

Ginny rose from the table, went to her brother and kissed his cheek before saying, "Prat", softly. Then she returned to her tea.

"Fair enough," I said, watching her sit. "I'll give it a try."

"Now onto more difficult work," Fred said.

"Weasley family protocol dictates that certain actions be taken," George said.

"Not that we don't appreciate you."

"Or the command you have over rugs."

"Or your ability to throw off the body bind."

"In your sleep."

"Gave our Ronald a bit of a shock, when he first met you."

"Which is saying something."

"Doesn't shock easily, that one."

"Though there was that time we turned his pillow into a spider."

It was like watching tennis.

"We appeared to have wandered a bit, Fred."

"Quite right, George."

"Hold on a second," I said. "You're George and you're Fred."

The one I knew to be Fred grinned. "You're clearly a force to be reckoned with."

"Do you reckon you might be getting to the point?" I said.

"Surely, D, just killing time," George said. "We're giving it what's known as a respectful interval."

"During which Dad has a go at appeasing Mum."

"But it's a fruitless endeavor, as he well knows."

"Only one thing can make this better."

"As he also knows."

"And what might that be?" I said.

Ginny smirked. Not a good sign for me.

"It's like a rule we have in our store." George looked me mournfully in the eye. "You broke it, you pay for it," he said.

I sighed and got up.

They were sitting at opposite ends of a sofa when I came in, Molly sort of fuming at nothing. Arthur was examining the cuff of his robes. It appeared that they'd been quiet a little while. He looked calm, but resigned.

"Did you two even talk about this?" I said.

"We don't have to talk as much as we did," he said, getting up from his chair and heading for the door. "We seem to have an understanding."

"Of course you do," I said. "You were sharing a skull with her."

She was giving me what should have been a sour look, but without much juice.

"Well," he said, "It's your turn now."

The door closed.

She looked at me a few times, furtively. It felt like she was trying to get up the momentum to give me a good dressing down, but couldn't quite muster it. After a few attempts, she sighed and looked down.

She said, "How could you speak to me that way."

I could tell her heart wasn't in it.

"How could I not?" I said. "You did end up telling me the truth about myself, didn't you? I'll always tell you the truth."

"As you see it," she said, keeping a bit of her own.

I thought about that. "You're right, I guess. That's all I have, Aunt Molly. If I was wrong, then you have to tell me. But only if I'm really wrong, not just if you don't like it, okay?"

I wasn't playing fair. I called her Aunt Molly. The hug I received was sure to become legendary, and my intestines were sure to become visible shortly.

"We've been there and back, you and I," she said over my shoulder. "It's just so hard sometimes. My children don't know me, and all I want to do is hold them, but every time I think about how long I was gone from them, I feel so …"

"Behind in your chores?"

She laughed a little as she released me, perhaps hearing the strain in my voice. "You might say that. Lily and James have done wonderfully with them, as I knew they would, and I don't mean to insult them. Oh my, I've said horrible things."

She truly looked stricken. "They will understand," I said. "But I think you should talk to them about it sooner rather than later."

"Of course, dear," she said, dabbing at her eyes. "It's only … well … do you think I'm jealous, D- Harry?"

You know I said it. You know I'd been waiting for it. "The D is silent. Maybe a little. You gave up – I mean, you gave …"

I felt my throat thickening. She'd given up everything she loved for me. I had two choices, extreme crippling guilt or overwhelming gratitude, and this is why my relationship with her was so complex. This once, looking at this beautiful woman, round and short and completely loving, I thought I would go for gratitude. My eyes were wet. I hadn't hugged her enough and there was no reason to be stingy about it. I enveloped her and squeezed. "It's loss," I said. "It's okay."

"Oh, my boy," she said, and I suppose that did it. We cried together for a timeless time, her body shaking and mine as well, two people taken out of the world and then dropped back in any old way and left to right themselves. There was no way it could not hurt. The good things made the pain a little worse, I think.

When we were both done, I thought of something. As she wiped her eyes some more, I reached out to her arm, and she looked up at me.

"Thank you for protecting Ginny," I said.

Her expression went through a few changes, ending with a small knowing smile.

"I didn't do it just for you, you know," she said.

"You may as well have," I said.

•

Okay, let me back up. As long as we are on about making things better, I shouldn't skim over my other heading-off of problems and fixing them, my fendings and mendings, and on that list is Hermione. Not so much on the current list anymore, but back then, there it was. So the day before, I think, I was in a little bit of a state. Loosely moored, buffeted by strong winds. And welcoming, in a way, being torn from my moorings, if only to be carried somewhere else. Anywhere.

It was a quiet day in Godric's Hollow, and I was wandering down a crooked path. That's not a metaphor or anything – it was an actual crooked path out in the grounds of my parents' home. Being stared down by rangy clumps of flowers is humiliating as well as weird, but when you feel like the world is looking to you for something, the most innocuous of things take on a disproportionate significance. I was currently being scrutinizeded by a crowd of blue and yellow columbine flowers my mother had crossbred with some other, magic plant, gifting them with the ability to pulse, like octopi swimming, and somehow granting them an awareness of my presence, so that as I passed them they would orient their stamens upon me and flex the thin petals below and whistle a bit. It wasn't scary, in fact the whistling was high and sweet and whooping and sounded like gentle coaxing more than anything else, but it was not what I expected from foliage, and I was feeling a little bit put upon. All of the things going wobbly in my life were vying for my attention, and I was wishing that perhaps one of them at a time would make its presence known so that I could deal with it in a reasonable way and then move on. For better or worse, I found myself thinking about Hermione, and more specifically being a few feet away from her, and so the universe had a bit of reflux and there I was.

Salient features of the room I appeared into included an overall atmosphere of gloom brought on by dust and black marble and dully glowing lamps, a number of glass cases on the walls intermingled with shelves of ancient-looking books and rolls of parchment, a large desk of dark wood covered with papers and open texts, and behind the desk, a shrieking woman who I recognized as Hermione.

"You – you can't be in here!" she said. Her hands clutched at the papers in front of her and they began to move around in a pattern that it took me a moment to recognize - she was frantically trying to straighten up.

"How – now see here," she said, "you can't just apparate into the Department of Mysteries, there are wards… and - things." She was rapidly moving from surprised to irritated. "There are reasons that no one but Unspeakables are allowed here."

"Like they might see this unholy rat's nest of a mess you work in…"

I had a very, very small hint of a smile on my face.

"… and speak of it?"

It was too small.

"How dare you!" She stopped straightening and stepped around her desk to get right up in my face. "Do you realize that no one will believe that I didn't let you in here and that my job is as good as terminated?"

"What if I leave now?"

"That would be good. That might be a good bloody move. What the bloody hell are you doing here, anyway?"

I would have to remember that her curiosity got in the way of her self-preservation instincts. "I came to talk to you. The last time we spoke, apparently I'd forgotten most of the words I know that don't have four letters."

Oh, but she didn't want to smile. It was a pitched battle between her eyebrows and lips. The brows won, but only just. "Very well. If you want to talk, you can meet me in the Three Broomsticks. Do you know where that is?"

"Yes, Ron 's brought me there before."

"Of course he has. Go there and wait. I'll be no more than one quarter of an hour."

She was official again. I took that as a good sign. If she felt in control of herself, I thought, we would be able to talk.

"Okay," I said – and then paused.

Three Broomsticks.

Three…Broomsticks.

I heard footsteps down the hall.

Was that the place with the goat, or was it the kind of pub, or were they the same thing? Which was the one with the entrance to the Alley? The Dripping… the Sloppy Something or … was that the place Arthur went? No, that was the…

Hermione's face looked like someone was pulling on her ears from behind. The rapidity with which her eyes flickered between the door and me was something to behold.

"Go!" she said.

"Just a second…"

The steps were increasing in volume. Her eyes were increasing in size.

"Is it the one with the wall thing?"

"Wall thing?"

"The entrance to the Alley."

"The Leaky Cauldron."

"Yeah."

"No."

"Huh?"

"That's not it. Can you just …"

"Which is the Broomsticks one again?"

"The one in Hogsmeade."

"Where's that again?"

"Can you meet me in the lobby upstairs?"

"I've never been there."

"What?"

"What does it look like?"

"It's a big marble room with fireplaces and – what bloody difference does it make? You haven't been there. Just go home and I'll meet you there!" Her voice was a fierce whisper and both of her hands were clenched into fists.

"Do you mean my mum and dad's–"

"I don't care – go anywhere, just bugger off!" As soon as it left her mouth she looked horrified, and I realized it was going to be fun seeing her later. I started thinking about the foyer of the house, and Hermione looked like she was getting ready to jump up and catch a marshmallow in her mouth, I mean she was wound up like a spring and her mouth was open. As I shrank to the proverbial dot, I thought I heard her sneeze.

Well, it was feeling like Christmas where I was when she appeared. She knew it, too. I must have looked a little smug. She took one look at me and her face fell.

I found myself feeling guilty. She knew I was going to give her grief about the "bugger off" and she was going to have to swallow something bitter. I decided then that I wouldn't make her do it. Not sure why.

"I won't hold it over your head, and I won't tell anyone about it ever," I said.

She looked a little surprised, and then narrowed her eyes at me.

"Besides," I said, gesturing to a sofa, "I wanted to see you so I could apologize."

She thought about it, then nodded and sat down.

I was become aware of something. An apology to her required clarity and strength. I figured that much, because she was not a fool by any means. But this needed to be good, and I wasn't really sure why, other than that I liked her and I'd been a little out of sorts from learning what a hero was and she'd just spoken up at the wrong time and I would have growled at anyone, probably. In any event I was paying attention.

"You have to promise me something," she said.

"What's that?"

"Don't – don't read me, please. I have a – well, it's impolite."

I said, "I won't look you in the eye – but it's not just impolite to you, is it? Okay, I'll do my part, but you have to be honest with me, and I'll believe you when you say you will be."

I was looking at my hands and so I couldn't see her expression when she said softly, "I wouldn't lie to you."

"All right. Then I need to tell you something. I'd just been getting to know Neville, and when you came in I'd been listening to him and seeing what he'd been through, with the war and all that –" (no words seemed enough, and I wasn't really going to try and paint the perfect picture) "- and it was an awful lot to take in. And he's amazing. He's just a – a tremendous person. Nothing like what I had expected and really really a hero in every way, and I was looking for words that expressed how I felt and found one or two good ones and then you tried to cut me off in mid-release, and so I pointed them at you, and that surely wasn't great to be on the receiving end of –"

"But you were right," she said. "I was telling you how to react, and that wasn't what you needed at the time, was it? So we sort of did the same thing to each other. It was not fair all 'round." She was performing a detailed assessment of the quality of the lining of her robes. "And you were the better person about it – you came to me to make things better, and I just went 'round being mad about it and didn't say a word." She sounded very defeated.

"Well, I didn't make it very safe for you, did I?" I said.

"How do you mean?"

"Okay, I'm not looking at you, right? But it seems like we're a little weird around each other. I want to know why that is, and I feel like it's been like that from the beginning. Gesundheit."

"What?"

"When I left your office. You sneezed."

"It wasn't a real one."

"A mock sneeze?"

"I was _trying_ to cover the sound of your apparating. As it was, it was virtually silent. So I was standing in the middle of my office, alone, sneezing falsely, and my immediate superior, who dislikes me for no good reason, chose that moment to enter, and now thinks I'm a loony."

"Because you were mock-sneezing in your office."

"It didn't look very…"

"I'm sorry that happened," I said.

"Then try not to smile while you're saying so," she said.

"Why are we weird?"

"I – I'm not sure. I mean, we're not weird… are we? Are you?"

"Yeah, I'm plenty weird." She laughed as I said, "Is that what it is?"

"Well, maybe." She expelled a breath. "Look, I'm a very – a very well-educated witch. I like to think I know a great deal about magic and the magical world. I wasn't born to it like most people, but I've worked very hard to-" (belong.) "-understand the way of things, and even in this bizarre world of bent physics and barking logic, things make some sense. They follow rules. Except – except you. I don't understand how on earth you do anything or why things work around you, or what you're thinking or fee- well, in any event, it's a bit hard for me to…"

The thing with her is, it's often what she doesn't say.

I thought she was a little confused. There were only parts of what she was chewing on that I could address, so I thought I'd do what I could. "I promised you that I would give you some time before, and I never have. You don't like mysteries that you can't solve, and I'm not giving you anything to solve me with. That's got to make you nuts."

"You're not just some problem, you're a person."

"Right. And with people, if you don't understand them, you have to ask questions. But maybe you feel like I'm so weird that you can't ask me things like you would any other person –"

"No," she said softly. "It's because I've been – this is so bloody embarrassing!"

"No point in being embarrassed in front of me," I said. "I don't know anything, so as far as I know, you're doing everything right."

"Not this," she said.

"Out with it," I said. "Teach me something."

She sniffed. "It's really the other way 'round. You've made me realize something about myself. I've been treating you like a problem all this time, and not just you. It's everything that I'm not sure about. Like equations, like list of numbers instead of people and feelings, because I'm so much more at ease with figures."

"You're using what you're really good at to deal with a problem. That's not bad."

"It is when you forget every other way of doing it. I read a wonderful book on the subject of distancing one's self from feelings and just filed the information away as if it had no practical use in the world, and it's funny because I never think of feelings as practical, but quite the opposite."

"But they give things meaning."

"Exactly, and that's what I've not been … I'm talking to you an awful lot. Are you sure you're not…"

"I promise. We're just talking."

"Well, it's rough work, isn't it. Ginny must be beside herself."

"You know – I think maybe I might have barked at you a little because of her –"

"I know, I know," she said, "and you're right, and she was right, and I was just trying to – I don't know –"

"To do what was right."

"Well – I suppose."

"And I think you did. Ginny and I – it's not simple, and it's not exactly a healer-patient thing, you know."

"I noticed," she said. "And really, that's not healthy for the patient, because he is in a vulnerable position, and the healer is in a position of authority and that makes for a dynamic that –"

"Yes, I get that," I said. "I don't think that was what was happening with us, at least from my end, but I know it bothered her because – well, I'm not sure why."

"That's simple," she said. "She didn't want to see you as a patient. She wanted to see you as a man."

Okay, that sounded amazing to me. My cheeks flushed, and I felt like throwing my chest out and wearing animal skins and howling a bit. As it was, in a somewhat less manly fashion, the area rug flexed and shook itself before stalking off through the house, presumably in search of a female rug or Ginny, and I hoped it was the former.

I wasn't looking at her, but I'd swear she was grinning a little.

"I, um, owe you for that insight," I said.

"I think we're even."

"Then tell me something."

"What's that?"

"Did you have a bad experience with legilimency before?"

"No," she said. "It's – it's nothing, now."

"What was it?"

"Well – " She was quiet for a moment. In the brief lull I could faintly hear someone elsewhere in the house saying, "Gerroff me, you bloody rug!"

She shifted in her seat and said, "Please don't take this badly."

"I'll be fine. I like you, Hermione."

"I – I like you too," she said, not much above a whisper. "But I wasn't clear on how I – liked you, and also, before, I think I was a little afraid of you."

"Will you let me look at you now?"

A hesitation, a breath. "Yes."

"Then listen."

•

She was thoughtful and still. Her eyes were downcast, but she was smiling.

"You know," she said, "I saw something that I really wasn't expecting, when you were thinking about Ron."

"What's that?"

"He's a fine strategist, I knew that from the war and chess and all that, but when it's people in front of him, it's people. He knows when to let things happen, and he knows when to step in and take action." Her cheeks colored faintly. "He's a good, good man. I needed to see him from another point of view, I suppose."

After a moment's pause, she said softly, "That's the man that I'm going to marry."

"Hard to say who's the luckier one," I said. "You're both amazing."

"Mm," she said as she stood up. "You have your own qualities as well, you know."

"Thanks," I said, feeling at this moment that nothing was simple when men and women were together. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek, which she completely owned (the peck, not the cheek) and disapparated in mid turn, leaving me with an afterimage of her profile, her chin a little down, with a little smile on her face. I had absolutely no right to, but when she left, a little different and a little more convinced of her future with another man, I felt a little loss, and a little jealousy. No woman is more beautiful than when she is wanted by someone else, I thought.

The fact that these thoughts were followed by acrimony, guilt and disgust at myself didn't make things any calmer in my mind. Ah. Another thing to learn to live with.

•

So we can jump later again. Just a day or two. Molly and I were sorted. I was back at Potter Manor, sitting in the living room, alone with various thoughts, some about how long or short my life might be, and some about Ginny. Not all of her. Well, actually all of her but some parts were being featured. I was thinking, "I have got to find something to take my mind off of her so I can think," when all at once the solution presented itself. The solution was this: give up trying not to think about her – here she is in tight jeans and a t-shirt, right in front of you. Why don't you just throw yourself headlong into thinking about her. It's what you want anyway.

She settled on the couch by me, a cup of tea in each hand, and pushed one at me. Quite the tea-drinker. It was a strange offering. Here, take this, it's a little surly gift from me to you. She was very hard to read when I couldn't look closely. That was getting to bother me, I can tell you – it's like being used to walking straight out of your door and across the street to the ice cream shop and then having someone tell you no, you'll have to go out the back door and hitchhike to the airport and take a rattle-y prop plane to Phoenix and then walk back on skis wearing the back half of a rhino costume if you want any more Fudge Ripple. The funny thing was, I felt like she wanted me to. I couldn't say why, but it seemed like it would have been easier for her if I just went in and looked around – but I didn't want to do that. Again, I couldn't say why.

She was, for lack of a better term, in a bit of a mood.

It tasted similar to Earl Grey.

That made me wonder about something. It came and went, the wondering, like headlights from a passing car.

Oh, and it was the tea that tasted of Earl Grey, not the mood – if the mood tasted like anything it wasn't bergamot. More like cayenne and lemons.

She said, "I know I should thank you for bringing my mother back to me. And my father. I know I should tell you that you've given me a special gift that I will never be able to repay you for, and that you've done an amazing thing for my family for which we will all be eternally grateful."

"But you're not going to."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Don't want it to go to your head. Besides, you can't really take credit for all of it. Dad and Mum brought you back. You were mostly a catalyst."

"Just a little spark, that's me. Anyway it's my fault they were gone."

She sighed very softly. "It was nowhere near being your fault. It was just bad luck all round."

"You're being good about it."

"I'm not being good about any bloody thing at all," she said. "I've been talking to my mother."

"Yeah? What about?"

"We're trying to get closer to each other by drawing lines."

"Lines."

"In the sand."

"Meaning…"

"That there are… things… that we don't talk about, by agreement, at least for a while."

"Like…"

"Well, she's agreed not to try to re-parent me, as it was done perfectly well the first time. It's difficult for her, because time has sort of passed and not-passed for her when she was in with Dad. She's told me that she loves being with her daughter, and was even willing to …"

She stopped talking and her shoulders drooped a little.

"To what?" I said.

"She said… she asked me if I wanted to call her 'Molly'."

"Oh. Ooooh."

"I know, I mean that was the last thing I wanted to hear. 'We can be friends.' I have plenty of friends already," she said.

"You want to have a mother."

"Exactly."

"Only, one who can't tell you how to act."

"Yes … huh?"

"You know," I said, "someone who's perfectly loving with you all the time, makes you feel safe and well-taken-care-of, but some one who is okay with everything you do. She won't tell you to dress a certain way or who to be with or tell you to behave or correct your language."

"Well, yes, though you're making it sound unreasonable, thank you very much."

"No, well, yes, maybe - I mean that you want unconditional love from her."

"Well, of course, who wouldn't?"

"Sure," I said. "I'm just saying that unconditional love is the kind that only comes from mothers. You know, from the moment you're born, no matter what, she thinks you're perfect, she loves you no matter what."

"That's it," she said.

"She was doing that _before_ you were born," I said. "She's still doing it. It's a schizoid mother thing. If you're a gardener and you have climbing roses, and you love roses, that won't stop you from trying to get them to go up the pergola where the sun is, will it? It doesn't mean you don't love roses."

She looked mad and thoughtful. She was complicated. I liked it.

"What did you say you'd do?" I said.

There was a pause.

"I'm trying not to be unreasonably mad at her for being gone all my life."

I tried to keep my face straight as I said, "That sounds fair."

"Oh, shut up."

"That's me over here, keeping quiet. The D is silent."

"For Merlin's sake. Let's just stop talking about me then, if you can manage that. What are you doing about your…problem?"

"Which one – the one where somehow I make people want to change the subject, or the one where there's a prophecy that says I have to kill some psychopath before he kills me?"

"The second one. The first one's irreparable."

"Thanks. I think they're about equal."

"What does that mean?" she said.

"I've talked to my parents and Remus about it. They know bits and pieces about this, but unfortunately the authority on this whole thing is that jackass Dumbledore. He's clearly out of his mind or something, and is also missing. No one has seen him since he left our house."

"Brilliant. Do you know, when we were searching for the horcruxes, he'd gone and done all of this obscure research on the subject, but when we asked him for help, he never gave us straight answers. It was always in the form of a riddle. As if testing our acumen were more important than killing off Tom. "

She got up and began to pace the room.

"I wanted help from him," she said. "I'd always looked up to him at school as this impossibly great figure. He had defeated Grindelwald and headed the Wizengamot and my brothers all thought he was amazing. Fred and George were actually a little afraid of him, and that made him all right in my eyes. I thought he was this giant, benevolent grandfather-figure who would protect and defend us through anything. But when things started getting dark…" She shook her head as she walked. "It seemed like he was above it all. After the Chamber of Secrets, there was a lot of hand-wringing and so on, but somehow he thought it was a good idea to let things lie. Never mind that racism was rampant in his school, and that he'd stood by and done nothing while three students were petrified by a giant bloody snake, including our Hermione," she said, pointing a finger at me as if I'd had anything to do it. "Somehow no one that mattered could remember how he'd stood back and allowed it to happen – that the night I'd gone down to the – the chamber –" I heard a moment's unsteadiness, but only a moment, and I felt a very strong thing for her, very strong, though I had no idea what it was "- he had gone off to sort out some administrative nonsense and left us all unprotected."

"The Chamber of Secrets," I said, instead of "that's awful" or "what a jackass" or "I know exactly how you feel even without reading your mind."

"That's what it was called."

"What were they?"

"What were what?"

"The secrets."

"Well, one of them was that there was a bloody giant basilisk in there. There's a secret for you."

"Fair enough. But were there any others?"

"That was well enough to be getting on with."

"I know, but –"

"Another one was how it survived without food for so long."

"Yeah."

"But I don't know any others."

"Have you…" Shut yourself, Deasil. Shut your entire self.

"Have I what?" she said.

Oh, well. "Have you been down there since?"

"Well, there's the yearly birthday celebrations there, and the snogging opportunities, but mostly I just go down there for the quiet time. What the bloody hell do you imagine?"

"Sorry."

"No, I haven't bloody been down there since. I get to visit anytime I want to in my dre– ooOOOOhh, bloody hell, I am NOT talking about this!"

"Language?"

"Shut it, you. Honestly I don't know why I put up with you. It's not that you aren't good looking."

"It's not that I'm _not _good looking?"

"What did I say?"

"Basically that I am good looking."

"Bugger. It's a curse, is what it is."

"I thought we were going to talk about me for a while."

She opened her mouth in anger and was seriously about to break me off a piece of her mind, but then abruptly thought better of it and grimaced briefly before fastening some composure onto her face in the way that one might board up one's windows before a storm.

"So we did," she said. "You were going to tell me…"

"Probably about what Remus and I have worked out about the prophecy."

"Go on, then."

"Well, clearly I need to be getting in shape."

"That's what you two geniuses have come up with?"

"Part of it. I am going to have to fight Tom for my life and everyone else's at some point, and I'm completely unprepared for anything like that. I've never fought anyone over anything as far as I know. I don't know if I should be learning karate or practicing my quick-draw technique."

"Er…"

"I don't know any spells, I don't know how magic works or why, I don't know why I'm the one, I just know that I am, or anyway Tom thinks I am."

"How … how pressing is this?" If anything, her pacing was faster.

"He said that one or the other of us would live, and there appears to be an expiration date on this situation. I mean, it's implicit that there must be, otherwise, why would neither of us be able to live while the other lived? It could go on forever otherwise – I think. I'm not sure what I'm saying anymore." Thick. Very thick. "Wait. Here it is. Neither one can live while the other survives. So that kind of means that I – even though I'm alive right now, and it feels like I am and it's great, pretty terrific actually, I can't, you know, really _live_ while he's still around. Maybe that means I can't have like a really great life, with horseback riding and the wind in my hair and winning the lottery and everything - only an… okay life. Honestly, that still doesn't sound really terrible, if this, what I'm living now, is just okay. Not really bad enough to, you know, destroy someone. But it's not just about me, of course, Tom's evil, terrible and crazy, and he's hurt you and countless other people, and it has to stop. It has to end, and I'm the only one who can do it, so there you go."

She stopped pacing and put her hands on her hips, cocking her head at me. "And that's it?"

It was hard not to read her. A little hurtful. The world wasn't liking me. But it was for the best. Don't read her. Keep talking. "What do you mean? What's on your mind?"

"Why do you just accept it? Someone says it's your duty to save the world and all you can say is, okay then? I mean, wouldn't you want a… a second opinion or something? Bloody hell, I'm starting to sound like you." Ginny shook her head again.

"Or I sound like you," I said.

"Oh, no you don't," she said. "I make sense most of the time. Except when I'm around y- Except when I'm around … that … time. What on earth…" She appeared to be casting about for something and not liking what she caught. Her cheeks colored. "That was genius. Actually, I mean … Oh, I don't bloody know what I'm saying."

I was having a thought. It was as if I hadn't been having them in a long time and my mind was grinding a bit from disuse. But this was something I had said before.

"We're a little … weird around each other."

"Too right. Oh, bugger," she said, looking pained, "I can't stop it, can I?"

"Stop what?"

"Admitting … admitting things to you." She moved her hair away from her eyes. "Look, I'm trying not to look like a complete nutter in front of you, and it never seems to work, I just lose control of my mouth and babble on and on, like I've never even talked to anyone, and it's making me doubt my – yes? What?"

She had tapered off because I'd – well, as she was speaking, I was looking at her mouth, and how it moved, and I have to say, it fascinated me. Press, purse, pout, part, each motion dragging across my mind, obliterating any other thoughts. Almost. I'd come closer to her and put my hands on her elbows.

"Why is it so important that you control it?" I asked. Her scent of unnamed flowers; the familiar yet unknown, the gravity my world was formed with.

"Control what?"

"Your mouth." Your perfect mouth. Yeah, that one.

When I finally found her eyes, they were actually looking at my mouth.

Honestly, I felt that look in my back pocket.

What really needed to happen was, I needed to acquaint that mouth with my own. Maybe they'd have something in common. Maybe they could compare notes. Maybe they could have a friendly wrestling match to settle their differences.

What did happen was, I said, "I like it when you're honest with me. It makes me feel closer to you, you know?" I was not being smooth. I was however the master of the obvious. I was hoping that somehow that would end up being irresistible.

"Closer to you," she said. And she was a little closer to me, actually.

"I… I want to tell you everything," I said.

"Let me be honest with you."

"Okay."

"I'm not very good with talking."

"No, you're –"

"Deasil, I mean, I'm done with talking."

"Oh. Well then, that –"

"Deasil." Her voice was patient. Meaning you could tell she was being patient. Just barely. "No. More. Talking."

"Then wh –"

She was right. It was time to stop talking. And she gave me something else to do.

I am a man given to flowery speech. A man who would use the verbal equivalent of a sledgehammer made entirely of butterfly wings to push in a thumbtack. In other words, not practical or even effective, perhaps, but with any luck interesting to watch. Well, two things come to mind now.

One, I have no words to describe what it was like to kiss her. I mean I have nouns for days, like lips and hands and goosebumps and heartbeat and breath and bosom and warmth, and tongue, which I wasn't expecting to be on the list but as it turns out I am fine with, and hips and a few other nouns that I'll keep to myself, and you know I have adjectives because I've used a lot of soft, smooth, humid, swollen, pulsing, tingling sort of words so far, and verbs, well, I'm going to have to skip most of those, and I've got countless similes and metaphors that I can string together, describing how things felt or tasted or grew or what have you, but it all seems inadequate.

And two, it's kind of private.

Around four or five million years later I came back to myself. I was looking into her eyes from a very short distance, like three or four inches, and I was good with that – I didn't want to stray too far and that seemed like a reasonable trip if I needed to return, and I knew I would. You become aware of different things at that distance from a person. The brown of her eyes was anything but simple. There were streaks of gold and green, and they seemed to change over time, as if sunlight were moving over them. Her pupils were very large.

Without question, the most perfectly beautiful woman imaginable.

"Am I?" she said. Her voice was small and exquisite, like a china rose.

"Now we're talking," I said.

•

"There's something I need to do," I said eventually.

"Mmm."

"I've got to ask Hermione something. "

"You have to what? Now?"

"Well, no, Gin, not right now."

"You called me 'Gin'."

"Yes. Is that okay?"

"Yes. Very. What is it that's so important?"

"I'm just wondering about something."

"What is it?"

"I'm wondering… you're a fabulous kisser, you know."

"Do you think?"

"Yes."

"So are you."

"That's what I was wondering about."

"What?"

"Would you like to know when I learned to kiss?"

"I suppose so."

"So would I."

•

A/N: This chapter could have been called "D, Tea and Women". There are other things going on in the story, but I want these out, so there can be room for the other bits that have more action and so forth. And so I won't be able to rely on them to get me through a chapter. And because I love dialogue between men and women. Thanks to Freja for non-beta beta-ing, and seeing things that I hadn't written yet, and thanks to Jules for being a little fuzzy and saying what she thought. Please review.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Now, I don't want you, my earnest and clearly patient reader, to think that all I do is hang out and chat up the birds. Although it is numbered among my favorite things in the world - talking to the women in my life - at that moment there were many other things going on concurrently, and sometimes, in the interest of holding a thought together, it makes the most sense to group like events together in my recollections, so that they are easier for me to make sense of. "Easier for you," I hear my fictional reader say, "But what about me? Don't you realize how jarring and obtuse this can be? How it gives a new depth to the term 'hard to follow'? Can't you just for once tell the story in the order it happened so I can make head or tail of anything?"

No, sorry.

It was after the day that Molly and I had had it out. Out in the back yard of my parents' house, Remus was training me in the manly art of feather levitating. You may be wondering what kind of day it was – was it one of those fictional days that dawned bright and clear, or perhaps a day wherein clouds hung low and the distant menace of thunder underscored a nameless apprehension in the humid air? Well, the truth is I don't remember, and anyway if I just tell you how things were then maybe you won't need a supplemental weather report to guide your feelings about everything. Besides, all of my attention at the moment that I recall was focused on a small brown feather that Widdershins had shed recently. And as unwelcome of an idea as it was to me, for reasons I will describe shortly, I was trying to influence its movement by waving a stick at it.

In a moment of weakness I'd allowed Remus and Ginny to take me to the wand store, owned by a Mr. Ollivander. When I'd asked what his first name was he'd acted like he hadn't heard me. He'd thrust a series of sticks in my hand and waited while I variously waved and pointed them at things. Some of the things I pointed at had exploded and some had wilted and one had collapsed with a very rude noise. Finally he'd dragged out an old, dusty box and, saying "maybe this one, I shouldn't wonder," handed it to me. A burst of red sparks had come from it, causing a small fire on one side of his dusty store, and we were ushered out with perhaps more vigor than was warranted. I'd barely gotten a chance to look at it and hadn't been able to ask why he shouldn't have wondered about it.

So it was this stick with which I was trying to influence the relationship the feather had with gravity. A few minutes of swishing and flicking, flicking and swishing, pointing and waving, and I'd given up on moving it and was instead writing profane words in the air, to identical effect. Remus was smiling slightly. He'd been trying a bit every day to show me more practical magic, while my mother talked theory with me and my father was off dealing with some legal problem he wouldn't talk about.

"You have to join three things together, Deasil – the intent, the word and the motion of the wand. The intent is the spark, the word focuses it, and the motion of the wand directs it to the object."

I finished with a very bad word before stopping. "Look, Remus, I don't mean to sound stupid, but why do I need to do this anyway? Can't I just work out a way to have it move, rather than do all this stuff?"

"I see your frustration, but the problem is that you'll be in many situations where the wand is what's being used, and you'll need to counter wand magic in kind."

"But why - Okay. But also – wandless magic is frowned upon, isn't it?"

"Not precisely. It's just extremely uncommon."

"Like out of fashion?" This was feeling increasingly pointless.

"No…"

"Quit hedging, Lou."

"Excuse me?"

"Lou, short for Loup Garou."

"Oh, _very_ funny."

"So you'd heard that one."

"No, as a matter of fact."

"Then don't complain. My dad's stuff is getting a bit long in the tooth."

"Yes."

"Kind of like once a month when you –"

"All right, Deasil," he said in a low voice, "what say we move on to offensive spells, shall we?"

Everything but my mouth said "uh-oh". My mouth came out with, "Wouldn't you rather just talk about wandless magic? Inside, with a cup of tea? That looks like it might smart a little."

"Those are some words I connect with you," Remus said, "'smart' and 'a little'."

I thought, "That wasn't even funny. He must be angry."

His wand was moving rapidly and there was a reddish glow trailing from its tip, and the air was crackling with energy. The main thought in my mind at that point was "I don't want any of that on me." I stumbled backwards.

As the sort of fellow who lives in his head a lot, I find it difficult to talk about being physical. But this is kind of important. The world for me became an area surrounding us about twenty meters in diameter. A tree three meters behind me and to the left, a small rise with a hedge behind Remus, a breath of wind at my back. What I was looking for was right behind me. Not sure how I knew it was there or why I was looking for it. I had to let things happen. I continued to stumble as Remus released a jagged red beam in my direction, first a little to the left as I lost my balance and the beam arced past me, then recovering my balance but overcompensating and veering sharply to the right, around a second beam that made a sound like a hornet. In my flailing around I'd managed to drop my wand, so I bent down to grab it and another beam went over my head. Remus was moving closer and so I backed up, still bent over, and my heel hit a root, the thing I'd been looking for, and before I could right myself I was falling back, my wand coming up and a red energy rebounding from its tip, directly into the face of my instructor.

I had a brief glimpse of his eyes widening before he took to the air, appearing smaller as he receded, until he struck the hedge and went feet over head past it. I heard a sort of a grassy thud, almost coincident with my own.

The grass had a very pleasant smell.

From behind the hedge, I heard a strained voice saying, "That will do for today, I think." After a short pause, he used a curse word I'd never heard before.

You like some people right away. Or maybe it's not real 'like', but you want it to be. I have to say that I've felt that way a great deal since I came back to England, immersing myself in the family and the welcome and the flaming siren whose being made up at least half of the atlas of my life. The folks I've been surrounded by are by and large wonderful, interesting and loving, or at least funny. And it's funny how we remember things. Sometimes I remember things that I see only briefly at first in a way that is more vivid than if I have time to study them. It's as though the mind gets a good picture the first time - a perfect snapshot, sharp and essential - and if it's something you see a lot, then other things creep into your memory of it, faulty comparisons, value judgments and emotional associations, and the essence of the object or person is gradually obscured by the cloud of colored perception that each of us is surrounded by. Our personal fog that makes us who we are also robs us of the truth of things as time passes.

So here's what I saw. At the top of the hedge, headed towards where I guessed Remus to be, was a spiky shock of pink. It took me a moment to realize it was someone's hair, and believe me, it was only because there was a gait involved. Energetic strides, in fact. The pink stopped about where I thought Remus might by and disappeared from sight for a moment. But this isn't the thing that's clear in my mind. In a moment I'll get to it.

"You called?" a voice said, a woman's, an upturning, bright voice that had a timbre that could only be described, if not as "laughing", with a word using those letters.

"Just wanted you to meet someone," Remus said, sounding constricted.

"Need some help up, old boy?"

"Lovely," he said, and followed that with a few grunts that indicated he was being dragged to his feet. I was sitting up, stretching my legs, enjoying the grass and the sun, thinking about a time recently when I'd awakened to the sight of my two feet in front of me and how that was almost all that I knew about for a little bit, those two feet, and maybe some trees and a duffel bag. And thinking about that red crackly magic. And why it rebounded off my wand. And what was wrong with me that I stumbled around like that and why I needed that root in the ground, why it was so important. Though I kind of understood it.

But that's not the thing either.

The pink had reappeared. With a bobbing motion it moved towards the hedge, gradually revealing the face of a young woman, probably mid-twenties, a round face, large eyes that looked purple from where I was, and a grin that made my cheeks hurt for a moment until I realized it was because I was returning it, like I'd joined a joke already in progress that was already funny even if I hadn't heard the punchline. Two steps' worth of that grin I had to enjoy, two steps of a terrific affinity, then the thing that I remember so clearly.

Her eyes open wide, a little crossed, her eyebrows arched, her mouth a comic red twist, a flicker of blue in her hair, a lurch forward, her purple irises rolling down towards the ground, and her disappearing from view.

Another thud, accompanied by a feminine grunt, was all I heard.

That's what I remember.

It was so funny, somehow, that I couldn't even laugh.

Remus said the weird curse word again and said, "Are you all right?"

There was a moment of quiet, followed by her face popping up again like a cartoon daisy. "Wotcher, Deasil," she said. It was as if nothing had happened. She vaulted the hedge with improbable grace, landed with a roll and trotted up to me, extending her hand. It was warm and strong.

I got up and watched Remus walk around the hedge, a little slowly, and come towards us. I realized that I was still holding her hand, but that was all right. She was clearly going to be a friend of mine. She was okay with it too, I guess, as we watched him approach frozen in a sort of handshake.

He said, "I want you to meet my good friend," and he cursed again.

"What's with all the language?" I said.

"What?" Points for me. Lovely.

"You keep cursing. Does something hurt?"

"I'm not cursing."

"So does your friend have a name or what?"

He cursed again.

I looked blankly at him.

"It's no Deasil, but it'll have to do," she said.

Uhh… oh. "I'm sorry, I thought, I mean, I didn't know that was your name."

"You thought he was cursing?"

"Well…" Say no. "Yeah. You know, like, oh, tonks, my butt hurts from flying over a hedge and landing on it."

Remus was hiding a smile with the same degree of effectiveness as he might achieve by hiding a sperm whale under a throw pillow.

"You thought my name was a naughty word."

"Well, he did shout it out when he fell."

"I see."

"With some intensity, too."

"Yes."

"So I figured …"

"Hmm…" she said, then turned around and looked at Remus appraisingly. "I suppose sometimes it's a bit naughty."

Remus looked like he'd swallowed a starfish.

"You look like a trustworthy sort," she said, turning back to me.

"That's a good look to have about one," I said.

"Quite. I'm going to do something I don't normally do."

"I can't imagine," I said, "what _that_ might be."

She narrowed her eyes at me slightly before going on. "Think of it as an inoculation."

"Against what?"

"Doing what you're about to do, only in the future."

"You talk like someone else I just met."

"Are you ready?"

"Will it hurt?" I asked.

"It depends on how you act," she said.

"Let me have it."

"Okay. My… first… name… is… Nymphadora."

There was a silence as she looked at me expectantly.

I looked around. Sun still out, I hadn't turned into anything, still male.

"…what now?" I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Does something else happen?"

"No, that's it."

"Oh."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"What about it, then?"

"What? That's a lovely name. Is it a flower?"

"Remus."

"Yes?"

"He asked if it were a flower."

"That he did."

"No one has ever said that."

"He's a bit weird."

"You like that name?" she said to me.

"Yes, why wouldn't I?" I said.

She was silent for a moment. We were still holding hands.

"Are you single?" she asked.

"As opposed to plural?"

"You're thinking of 'singular'."

"Oh, he's definitely that," Remus said softly.

"Never mind," she said, "I'm not anyway. Let's get old furry-shorts inside and put some ointment on what hurts him, shall we?"

"Sounds like a plan," I said. "For someone else to apply the ointment."

"Oh, I'll be happy to do it," she said. "It wouldn't be the first time I –"

He said the word again, and this time it was very definitely a naughty word.

•

Some time later that day, I'd allowed Tonks and Ginny to talk me into going to a movie. I'd been sort of wanting to get out, even though I'd been passing wonderful time these days with my mother and father as we got further used to each other, and I wanted to find out if there were as many gorillas in films as I'd seen previously or if, as I had begun to suspect, the one I'd seen was a bit atypical. I had applied a glamour to the scar and changed the color of my eyes a little and was standing outside the door to Ginny's room, knocking.

"Just a minute, we're getting ready," Tonks said through the door.

"What's taking so long?"

"Girl stuff. Who did you just meet that talks like me?"

"Me. What's girl stuff?"

"Stuff that involves girls. I thought Remus said you were bright."

"Come on, Tonks, I just got here, I don't know a thing about girls. I don't know what girls get up to at any point."

"It's true," Ginny said, "he's completely clueless."

"Hey, that's not what I –"

"Right then, in you come," Tonks said, flinging the door open. Ginny was seated at a low table before a mirror. In front of her were several small pots of various substances, almost all of them in what looked like unnatural hues, and to her left bubbled a small brass pot over a blue flame that was notable in that it wasn't emanating from anything. No sticks or coal, just a flame around the base of the pot.

I wandered over slowly as Ginny regarded herself in the mirror and waved her wand around her hair.

I must say at this point that she was quite beautiful. I noticed after a strange tug in my stomach that there were no rugs or drapes of any kind in this room.

"So…" I said, casting about. "What are we doing here?"

"A bit of glamour, young Deasil, a bit of glamour," Tonks said.

"It looks amazing, whatever you've done," I said. I think I might have been sweating a little.

"I haven't really started yet," Ginny said, a faint redness on her cheeks that almost belied that claim.

"Wow. Perfect. Let's go, then."

"No, no, no, you won't get out of waiting that easily," Tonks said. "You and Remus are men, and Ginny and I are women –"

"Well spotted," I said.

"-and it is your obligation to wait for us while we beautify ourselves."

"Why?"

"Because it builds character to wait," she said.

"No, I mean why do you think you have to beautify yourselves? What's wrong with you now?"

"Nothing's wrong with us. Of course we are the embodiment of feminine pulchritude."

"Is that a sickness?"

"Beauty, Deasil," Ginny said, smiling.

"Then what are you doing, interfering with that?"

"I told you he was like this," Ginny said.

"Like what?" I said. "I'm just saying I don't think you need –"

"Hang on," Tonks said, "Just wait a moment here and you'll be changing your tune completely. Now turn around or close your eyes or something."

I wasn't getting this. I wasn't getting a lot of things. I went and sat in a chair on the other side of the room and looked away.

•

I thought about what Remus and Tonks had said to me after we came in from levitating practice. I'd asked him if he was all right and he'd said, "No harm done, Deasil. I suppose I brought it on myself – I made a common mistake in dueling you."

"What was that?"

"I was a little piqued, and I underestimated you. It just goes to show," he said, sitting down slowly in a chair, "that we aren't at our best when we let our emotions drive our actions."

"That would explain a lot," Tonks said from the other room.

He sighed and went on. "When I'm attacking you but I'm thinking about how mad I am, what am I not doing?"

"Thinking about what I'm doing."

"Right. Though I don't know how much it would have helped in any event. Either my aim is terrible or you're spectacular at evading spells. Every time I thought I had you, you managed to stumble free. I wonder if you might tell me – is that something you've practiced?"

"Of course he didn't practice it." Tonks' voice came into the room like a beam of sunlight. The kind that interfered with a restful sleep.

Remus looked mildly pained. "Is that true?" I nodded. "Then can you tell me about it?"

"Maybe," I said. Things about it made sense to me, but not all of it. There was this sort of fundamental logic to it that I felt a little shy about sharing, because it sounded strange to me, in that it was unlike anything my mother had said in our hours of magic talk, in which she'd begun telling me about the physics and nature of magic as practiced in Europe. (There were other approaches to magic practiced elsewhere in the world, but the European way was what Tom went with, so it seemed logical to learn about that, at least to understand what he might do.) I thought that Remus might be able to parse bits of this with me, but he seemed a little on the conservative side, which was weird to me coming from a werewolf. But then again, he didn't choose that for himself, so … "Let's see.

"When I realized you were going to attack, I found myself looking for something without really knowing why. There was a sort of… a key, a turning point, or a trigger, or something. Kind of how I was supposed to fit. You know?"

"No."

"Okay. You know how everything has its place in a moment, and how if you find your place everything will work out?"

"No."

"Uh…what do you mean?"

"What do _I _mean?" Remus said.

"Yeah," I said. "You know. Everything works out if you know where you are. Right?"

"Deasil, you've lost me."

"Look, it's like today, the thing that made everything work was the root and the tripping over it. Everything else led up to that, I was just a part of it. As long as I just went with it, I'd get to that and I'd fall over and the wand would be up and – done."

Remus was quiet.

"Deasil, Remus doesn't understand you," Tonks said, coming in to the room, "because he has a problem letting things happen."

The look he gave her was funny to me. I became aware of the fact that there were two conversations going on here.

"You see," she said, throwing herself into the loveseat he was sitting in and cozying up to him in one fluid motion, "Remus likes to think of _why_ things _should_ happen, instead of thinking about _that _things _do _happen. Whereas I," she said, twisting and dropping the back of her head into his lap, "am all about things happening. They happen to me, I happen to them, and things work out. Don't let him convince you to take yourself apart just so he can see how you work – just do your thing and let him figure it out. After all, it's not important how or why."

"Dora, every situation isn't the same –"

"No one's saying anything of the sort. However, most mysterious, magical and beautiful things in the world can be seen in countless different ways that depend entirely upon the bias of the observer. Seasons change and some people decide it's a goddess' daughter spending six months in Hades and some people decide it's a giant badger eating an orange, and they fight wars over things like that, and meanwhile the world continues on its elliptical orbit around the sun maintaining its tilt, and it doesn't care what the people on its surface argue about. Eventually people figure it out, but their beliefs shouldn't change what the earth does, right?"

"You're jumping around a bit," Remus said, but he was smiling down at her with a great and subtle fondness.

"That's me," she said. "Remus has a problem with accidents," she said to me. "Sometimes he thinks there's no such thing, and sometimes he thinks they're bad. Either everything has an explanation, or if he can't figure out what it is then it's not good. One of these days something wonderful is going to just drop in his lap and he won't know what to do with it except disavow it or explain it to death."

"One of these days," I said.

"Not you too," he said.

"Harry, I mean Deasil, is very comfortable with accidents, although they aren't exactly that with him, are they? Maybe to us, but he's just being part of something, isn't he? Aren't you?"

My new friend. "Yes, that's it exactly."

The limb was tingling again. The one I was missing.

•

"You can look now," Tonks said. Her voice was crackling with high harmonics, which I was rapidly coming to recognize as the sound of mischief.

I turned, listening to the sound of my jeans on the rough silk of the chair. A whisper, that almost sounded like a word. When the sound stopped I looked up.

Ginny looked a little embarrassed.

Mostly because her cheeks were now a bit red. Her eyes were outlined a little in black, as if someone drawing her had gotten preoccupied with a telephone call and just traced them, absentmindedly, over and over again. There was a purplish cast above her eyes, which made her eyes (which I knew very well to be lovely) look darker and more like someone had set jewels upon velvet, which is very nice if you like that but if you like beautiful eyes it's a strange effect because you don't necessarily want to see two eyes just sitting there on velvet. Her skin was a slightly different color - the freckles I'd been counting ever since I first saw them were mostly obscured by a thin coat of something that was not very reminiscent of her skin tone, or any skin tone I'd ever seen, if I thought about it.

Okay, I'm making this sound worse than it is. Maybe it's a bit of hyperbole. But in my defense as a biased observer, I should say that Ginny had the kind of face that made me pass out and forget who I was, that made rooms catch on fire, even, and that her face was one of the few things in recent memory (or any memory) that I could recall with no effort. It was a precious thing to me beyond beauty or attraction – it was familiar, and it placed me in the world. This seems like a lot to say about someone else's face – and one might ask, is it such a good idea to have another person, and more specifically their appearance, to serve as one's anchor in the world? People change, don't they? Well. I never said it was the smart thing to do. I was compelled to do it. I don't think it would have made any difference if she had been taller or rounder or thinner. Or if that changed over time, as people do. That clearly was not the point.

"I still know it's you," I said.

That clearly was not the point either.

Ginny's eyes were big, and she was taking me in. I wasn't sure if she was going to burst in to tears or yell or what, and it was a long moment.

But things went curiously well, like they often did with her. The smallest smile nudged her cheek, and she gave me a look before turning back to the mirror.

"What kind of a thing to say is that?" Tonks was outraged. "What about she's beautiful? Or she's a knockout? Or you're a lucky bastard to be seen anywhere near her?"

"That was already true," I said.

Ginny smiled a little more, but still said nothing.

"How insensitive can you be? It's not a bloody gorilla mask," Tonks said, "it's makeup. You know about makeup, don't you?"

As a matter of fact, I knew a little bit about it. I knew that Arthur had relied heavily upon it, though I didn't know why until later. And, you know, he wasn't a lovely woman, so he kind of needed the help. But that's what it was to me. Help. I didn't think Ginny wanted to hear about her father's makeup period, though. "Sure, I just don't-"

"This took time," Tonks said. "And effort. You can appreciate that, can't you?'

"Of course I can app- wait a minute, _you_ did it, _didn't_ you? I'm supposed to be apologizing to her, not you."

"That isn't – I didn't – "

"You're barking at me for being insensitive to her, but this is all about _you_." And your questionable makeup skills, my new friend.

"Is not!" She was trying to beat her way out of it, using the rather blunt tool of loudness. "You don't care that someone goes the extra mile to look beautiful –"

"Nymphadora." I refused to raise my voice. This was a little crazy. She was a little crazy. But as I looked at her I became aware of something other than the hair-changing-color thing. I remembered something. Remus. I made a connection, finally. This was Tonks, and I had heard her name before – I'd just forgotten it. I'd seen the way he saw her, some days ago at the hospital. The eyes I looked at were the ones he loved. True, they were hovering over a mouth that was currently berating me. But when you see things from someone's perspective, it's hard to see them any other way. So I waited for a moment where she paused for breath and said, "It doesn't matter how she looks to anyone, it's what she feels about it that's important, but how she really looks is perfect to me, no matter what that is, because that's her, and whatever she is is okay with me. Now or later. Ever. Now or ever."

That glow thing was funny – I never knew when it was going to show up. It was actually very pretty reflected in Ginny's eyes, and shimmered in her hair.

"What…" Tonks looked back and forth between the two of us. "What are you on about? What was that?"

"I'm just saying I don't like the make-up thing that much."

"Don't listen to him, Ginny, I think you look great. Deasil, this is not about you."

"So this isn't for men? It's so other women will think you're attractive?"

"Deasil, don't be thick, it's for her. It's a good thing. I mean, what would you call something that makes a woman feel good about herself?"

"Therapy?"

"Deasil…"

"A feeling of self-worth? What am I missing here? Why are you looking at me like that? Hey! Ow! Ow!"

Oh, just imagine it. It hurt. What else do you need to know?

Well, maybe that Ginny stopped her. And that when we left the house fifteen minutes later, Ginny's face was as unadorned as it had been when I first met her, and her expression was peaceful, and I couldn't stop looking at her.

•

Our departure was temporarily delayed by my abrupt transition into being a canary.

Or anyway, a five-foot-nine feather-covered guy with a beak.

"Never," I heard Ginny say to me as I regarded her in a sharper way than I am used to, impulsively tilting my head and taking her in with my right eye mostly, "eat candy out of a dish here."

Fred was summoned, and after emitting a hyena-like noise he said a few words, waved his wand around, did a little dance, and then handed me what looked like another piece of candy. Ginny gave me a subtle nod of encouragement.

I was dubious, but I gulped it down anyway.

With a loud popping sound, all of the feathers ejected themselves from my skin and the beak fell to the floor, clacking itself together for a moment before subsiding.

"One of yours?" I said.

"To be sure, though I'd no idea those were still about," he said, grinning in a way I know he hoped was infuriating. "We did have quite a run on young Ronald for a while there."

"What for?" I said.

He looked at me for a moment before saying, "Because we could, of course."

"So no reason."

"I wouldn't say –"

"And that gibberish and the waving and the little dance just now?"

"Well, Mr. Potter," he said, sounding like things were going a little strangely, which they might have been, "it's all in the presentation, you see?"

"So you do a lot of … meaningless stuff?"

"Someone needs a sense of humor," he said, still smiling a little.

"I think someone would need _your_ sense of humor."

"Erm…"

"Did you know that my vision got better when I was under that … whatever it was?"

He looked thoughtful. "Really."

"Yeah. That actually seems kind of useful."

"Ah! You see?" he said triumphantly.

"Yeah," I said. "Too bad it was an accident, otherwise I'd have thought you were clever."

He looked very sour. This lasted as long as I could keep the smile off my face. Then his eyes narrowed, and he shook his finger at me. "Nice one, Deasil, nice one, but I think you don't realize what you've started, do you?"

I didn't.

•

All right. Imagine you're in a dark room with a lot of people, and there's a giant gorilla roaring and beating its chest and fighting a big lizard or two, and defending a woman who, while perfectly fetching and comely, would not be the first person you'd set up with a giant primate. Imagine that on one side of you, there's a pink-haired woman squealing with delight and watching through her fingers, making quite a bit of noise really, and that on the other side, there's a redheaded popcorn-consumption machine, her dark eyes shining blue-white from the screen, and in her compulsion to process the corn she has emptied her tub and now most of yours, all without wresting her gaze from the screen even to look down at what she's eating, and imagine that if you were the kind of fellow who would get an ego boost from being seen in the company of two beautiful women, then you'd probably be pretty chuffed at the moment. It's not that you would want people to think you're dating both of them or something, I mean maybe the thought crossed your mind for an unworthy split-second before you realized how unfair and disrespectful and weird that would be, and how real, deep and primary affection can only move in one direction for you, and not just one at a time, and anyway since no one could hold a candle to the redhead it would be a bit rough on the pink-head, who's a few years older than you anyway and fancies a werewolf and seems like a fast-friend, running-buddy sort of person and is a little crazy, and maybe the thought is crossing your mind that it would be nice to just have a thought that's a bit wrong and not even tell anyone about it and not have to deconstruct it to pieces, thank you very much, it's not like anyone would know about the thought except for you and, well, whoever is reading this, and maybe around this time you might imagine that you've gone from being chuffed to disgusted with yourself, not so much for the stupidity of the thought but the fact that you've stopped thinking about being in the theater, in the folds of this velvet moment, with these unique and literally wonderful people, and are now thinking about thinking about thinking. You can imagine that would be something of a curse, if you like.

The next thing you might imagine, were you in my shoes, would be a bit of extra detail in the film. The gorilla (and I was thinking that I'd been right about movies and that they actually did favor the simian in subject matter) had dealt one of the lizards a devastating blow, and the lizard had flopped down hard, on its side, throwing up a spray of dirt and small rocks. It looked amazing. For a moment my attention was drawn by a small sound on Ginny's side of me. It was a hollow clatter that came from the direction of what had been my tub of popcorn. I didn't see anything, so I looked back at the screen. I turned back to her a moment later when she cursed and spat something into her hand.

It was a small rock.

I might have thought that was odd, but I forgot about it completely when I was struck in the forehead by a twig a few seconds later.

I was thinking to myself, "You really do miss a lot seeing movies only on television."

Ginny said, "Deasil, are you…?"

"No, I apparently only do drapes and rugs," I said.

"What the bloody hell.." Tonks said. People were rising from their seats now, beginning to see that things had just gotten a little weird. The roars of the creatures were a bit louder than they had been, as if we had gotten closer to them, and debris and moisture were spraying from the screen. A tree trunk, visible at the edge of the frame, had been knocked aside by one of the combatants and was now resting half in the jungle and half on a few seats in the first row.

Something didn't seem right about this.

I said as much to Ginny, who said, "I think you may be right, there, Deasil, the bloody movie's spilling over into the theater – that's not the way it usually –"

"Where are they?" Tonks' voice was tense. When I looked at her she was scanning the crowd and the screen, looking for someone, her wand in her hand, all traces of humor gone. People began to move into the aisles.

"You don't think –" Ginny said.

"Yeah," Tonks said, "can't find them yet." She turned towards the back of the theater.

You might expect that since the trees had developed substance that the other things in the movie might follow suit, and sure enough they seemed to. One of the giant lizards, in circling the gorilla, lashed its tail and for a moment there it was, greenish and thick, rougher and lighter in color at the bottom, whipping though the air over the seats, and that was enough to encourage the slower moving audience members to shift into utter panic.

Something still seemed wrong.

"We've got to get out of here," Ginny said. She was calm, but energized. I really loved seeing her in the light from the screen. I wanted to tell her so, but something else was pressing.

"Do you still have that rock?" I said.

"What?" Ten points.

"The one you bit down on."

She opened her mouth to surely give me a piece of her mind for not being cognizant of our situation, but it closed again when she found the rock still in her hand, where she'd been clutching it since things had gone strange. She handed it to me without a word.

I listened to the shrieking for a moment, watched people climbing over seats and shoving each other in their panic. It was loud and full of motion and a little overwhelming, which was good for what I had to do – ignore everything else for a time.

The way it sat in my hand. The way that it was not a part of this. I couldn't slip on it or drop it or find it in the moment. It seemed completely inert. It had no relationship with anything.

"I don't think…"

"What is it, Deasil?" Tonks asked, not looking at me as she scanned the crowd.

"This thing isn't really… here. I mean, it's not really a thing."

"How do you mean?" The shouts of the crowd were making it hard to hear her.

"I think I'm… I'm just supposed to think it's here, but it isn't. We're not seeing what's really here."

Ginny now looked a little alarmed. "That's not good. Someone powerful is making this happen."

"Yes, but our handsome friend Deasil can see through it. Maybe he can stop it? Where _are_ they!" Tonks was still searching, her face now in shadow as she watched the doors.

We had made our way to the outside edge of the row and were headed up towards the entrance. I thought about what she'd said. "Ginny, what is that spell you told me about that ends another spell?"

"Finite Incantatum," she said.

"What does it do exactly?" I noticed Tonks pulling out what looked like a compact mirror and thought that she took the makeup thing too seriously, especially since she was talking to it.

Ginny said, "It disperses the intentionality of a spell. The – the bit that _means_ it." She was referring to a previous conversation we'd had, that strangely enough I'm not going to get into at this moment.

"So you do it," I said.

"Okay, but – _Finite Incantatum!_ – see, it only works on a spell cast by someone of equal or lesser strength. Whoever did this," she said, gesturing at the smoke and the hind leg of a lizard digging into the floor, "is more powerful than I."

Well, okay. All I had to do was interfere with someone's will and this would all go away. That seemed completely impossible. How do you even begin to do that? Will is will. If I could distract the person doing it or something, maybe … but we couldn't see anyone doing it. My mind went a little blank for a moment. All that yelling and roaring and noise. Score, even, there was score underneath it all, and I think that started it for me. The music was louder than it might be, but I wasn't seeing an orchestra appear out of the screen, because that didn't make any sense. I mean, it might have if this were all logical, but it wasn't. It wasn't real, because it was subject to someone's whim. The score had no place, no potential, it was like the idea of music in a dream without the identity of music. The rock in my hand, smooth like a river rock but not from years of tumbling and friction, just someone's lack of imagination, not rooted in reality because it was someone's idea of what would happen. An incomplete idea, a doppelganger, not real. I regarded it forcefully now, feeling the way that a look can be an almost solid thing, how observation makes something collapse, like a jet of water crumbling earth away. One moment it was in my hand, and the next moment it had never been there.

Now all of you folks, why don't you see it like that? I thought.

In this now mostly empty theater, the only motion was from the screen, comfortingly flat. Someone had thought to turn the lights up, and I could see a litter of abandoned coats, draped haphazardly over seats like skins that had been shed in haste, and food cartons and cups thrown down, and now only the three of us.

"Let's get outside," Tonks said.

When we went through the lobby doors we came upon quite a scene.

The night had gone wet and shiny, and before us the street was deserted and the rain had soaked the ground and had begun to saturate the air. I could feel it in my lungs, cool and sweet after the warmth and closeness of the theater. Apparently reinforcements had arrived. There was a group of wizards standing in a circle, gathered by a streetlight. A few meters above them, several other people appeared to be tumbling in place against the dark sky. Whoever had done that with the movie theater had gotten these folks stuck up in the air, and the wizards were trying to get them down, but they were having absolutely no luck. They were shouting a lot, as if that would help.

Tonks was horrified, and rightly so, I thought. The people up in the air were still screaming. Ginny exhaled harshly next to me, and I noticed how tightly she was gripping her wand.

"Put that away, Ginny," Tonks said in a whisper, pulling us away from the doors and towards an alcove by the box office. "You can't help them."

"That's what everyone says, Dora," Ginny said with bitterness in her voice. "We're all supposed to stand back and wait for help –"

"That's right, and shut up!" Tonks whispered.

"But they've got it under control, don't they?" I said.

"Does it look like they do?" Ginny said, maybe a little loudly for Tonks' taste, as she winced.

I watched them for a moment. They definitely looked impressive. Flowing black robes, protective masks of a burnished silver, with faces molded into them, even. A little theatrical, maybe, but that was wizards for you, I thought.

But for the second time that night, I felt like something wasn't right.

As I listened more closely, I became aware, mixed in with the screams of the people in the air, of laughter. "Well, someone over there is not too fussed about all this," I said. "Someone's having a good time."

Ginny looked at me with shock at first, as if I'd just told her the reason that dogs bark is because they've forgotten what they were going to say but had to keep going.

"D." She paused, mastering herself. "Those people. In the black robes. They're not good wizards. They're not Aurors. Remember what Aurors are, like Tonks? They're not them."

"Ginny," Tonks said, "I think maybe you should –"

"Who are they?" I said. This was getting a bit confusing for me.

"Friends of Tom."

"Is that like friends of Dorothy?"

"What?" Ten points.

"How do you know about that," Tonks said, "if you can't remember anything?"

"How do _you_ know about that if you're a witch?" I said. I was a little beyond whispering at this point. Tonks was poking me. Figuratively. I hadn't been able to get in contact with Hermione to figure out the answer to her question, and frankly the lack of an answer to why I barely knew who I was but might do passably on Jeopardy was weighing on my shoulders. That and the fact that I wasn't really sure what Jeopardy was.

"Why shouldn't he know what they are?" Ginny's voice was abrasive. I never thought I would think that. She was furious.

"Why should everything get dumped on his head? How about a little time?"

"He doesn't have a little time!"

"What are you talking about?" I said. A little loudly.

One of the robed figures turned slightly, then stopped. Then the figure twisted its head towards the three of us. There was no face visible – only a mask that I could now clearly see. A hideously smooth approximation of a face, but without any details that would make it warm, or angry, or at all human.

Like the rock in my hand.

Above, a twisting man lowered by several feet.

"Death… Eaters," Ginny said, as she saw the one turned towards us.

Tonks tense. Ginny angry, fearful. Those… minions, those drones, puppets. Like human, but only like human. Torturing these other people. Normal people? No magic makes you normal? No. These are all people. Some are more powerful than others, and some think that's an opportunity. Those masks are an illusion, a prop, that fools these powerful ones into thinking that power makes them better. This is all so – unfamiliar to me. I don't understand this. I want to go away from this, to recede. I don't want to accept this. This darkness.

Everything fell black in front of me, fell like water from a bucket.

And when I say that, I mean all the lights went out. There were a few shouts of anger, then several thumps and the sound of scrabbling on the wet pavement, followed by several crisp snapping sounds. As my eyes became used to the darkness I saw more robed figures surrounding the masked ones on the ground, and these all had real, human faces.

I put my hands on the shoulders of Ginny and Tonks and said, "Now it's time to go."

Much to Tonks' chagrin, we went, as I had read somewhere unknown to me, like a fist when you open your hand.

•

When we appeared in the kitchen of my parents' house (I was looking for comfort – I won't try to deny it) the first thing that happened was that Tonks and Ginny both threw up.

"Merlin, that was a rough one," Ginny said, waving her wand at the floor and disposing of the evidence.

"It's never like that for me," Tonks said. Then she straightened up and looked around her.

"Bloody hell, we're in Wales!"

"Yeah, back home, right? What's the problem?" I said.

"You know how we took the Floo to London and then walked and took a minicab to get to the theater, and all that?"

"Yeah…"

"Do you know why we didn't just apparate there?"

"No, why?"

"Because we CAN'T!" She smacked the countertop with the flat of her hand.

"We did." I was feeling a little sheepish, because I'd clearly messed up, but couldn't be sure how I had, though that never seemed to make any difference with me, I mean that just because I didn't know anything about anything didn't mean that I couldn't still be held responsible for not knowing about it.

"No, you did. We can't apparate that far. And even if we had the ability to do that, we'd honk ourselves dry the moment we did. As I think you may have noticed. And you took an Auror away from the scene of a conflict against her will. And what the hell happened back there?" This last was a shout.

My father appeared in the doorway, looking frowsy. "You're back, then."

"Hi, Dad," I said.

Tonks went on. "I mean one second the people are just –"

"Movie end early?" my father said. He ignored everything else in the room but me. This was a man with focus.

"You might say that," I said. "Do all movies have gorillas in them?"

"Many of the better ones, certainly," he said.

"- Then zap! Everything's dark and then the Muggles are lying on top of the Death Eaters and then the Aurors come in and poof! We're back here puking up our bloody shoes –"

"Death Eaters?" My father had become completely serious in an instant. "All right, from the top."

While Tonks told the story I watched Ginny. She looked a bit shaky. I stepped closer to her and said in a low voice, "Are you all right?"

"No, I'm not," she said, but when she looked into my eyes she was not fearful. She was good and mad. "I hate those plate-faced bastards. My whole life people have been telling me to hide immediately if I see one, and I'm bloody sick of it. It's not as if I haven't fought them before. They wouldn't have any power if people weren't so scared of them."

"You fought them?"

"Towards the end of the last dark times we were always being attacked by them in one way or another. They guarded the remaining Horcruxes, once they figured out that we were looking for them, they attacked the school – they even came looking for your parents and us, though they couldn't get past the Fidelius Charm on the house – that's a charm that keeps all but the people you allow from finding something. And of course, I've fought with Lucius Malfoy."

"That was the weird guy in the alley?"

"His father. It was that posh bastard that gave me the diary, and when I found out he had a bit of a runny nose for a while after. Later I fought him again with Ron and Hermione when we were captured and brought to his house. He got one in – " she showed the underside of her forearm, where there was a faintly visible scar " – but I stunned him while he was congratulating himself over it, and we got away." Her cheeks were red, and her eyes were bright and the pupils a little dilated, but she didn't look like fire was going to erupt or anything yet, and her hand was unclenched, which I now knew to be a sign that she was in control of herself. "And while Neville was facing down Tom at the school gates, I was fighting Inferi and vampires with the rest of the DA – Dumbledore's Army – and we were winning, too, though they all flopped down dead or at least stiff or flew away the minute Neville snuffed him."

There was a lot more talking that night, and a lot of other stories told, as more people came over and Tonks went back to the scene, with strict instructions not to bring me into it, and a great many more details were filled in about what had happened the last time Tom was powerful, and throughout all of it, I stood at Ginny's side, mostly holding her hand, not wanting to be away from her. She was strong, I knew, and life had taught her to turn her fear to anger and action, and I knew that however badly things might go in the future, that she would always take care of herself, that she was brave. But I also learned about myself that I could hate something. I hated what made her need to be so brave, and hated the man I had not yet met who brought this on her. Of all things, I wished that this all had never been so.

•

No one had heard from Dumbledore in a while, so it was decided that some of us should go to the school that he ran and talk to Minerva about what to do next, and also Hermione wanted to run some things by her before trying to make sense of my patchwork mind. I have to say it was irritating that she absolutely refused to theorize in front of me – for her, there was clearly no such thing as a wild guess. Anyway, I wanted to see the school. We apparated there the next morning after a noisy Potter-Weasley breakfast. The bad thing about that was that since I had no idea where it was, Ron had to side-along apparate me. It was not too pleasant for me – for one thing it seemed to take a really long time to get there, and I didn't like the neighborhood we went through, and I felt like I was being snorted through something. But we arrived whole and hale, and I thought it would have been rude to complain. I got a good look at where we were, in case I ever had to return.

We were outside a tall ornate gate, the metal curlicued and baroque in spots and starkly unwelcoming in others. Presumably the curly parts were there to indicate how nice it was inside, and the other parts were to indicate that you weren't necessarily the sort they liked in there. Once Hermione had opened it, I was able to see the castle some distance away, across a broad green sparsely populated with students, and I was momentarily captivated. Another possible life. Like the nature of my magic, profoundly unlikely, and like my memory, unreachable. There were spires and towers and massive stained-glass windows, and it was a different stone than the buildings I could remember, of an enduring kind, and it made the city I'd known seem transitory.

Through giant wooden doors, then, and down long cobbled passageways and up stairways that moved indolently from landing to landing, guided by the sleepy light from stained-glass windows. We were occasionally obliged to wait while the steps swung around. I at once respected the obvious sense of humor and was irritated by the sheer inconvenience. Was there reasonably such a thing as tardiness at this school?

It was clearly the end of a class period, evidenced by a rush as of tides, and a sound of relief and exuberance, and (to add yet another disjunct pair of metaphors to the pile) a thundering herd of kids erupting into the halls. It was a little hard for me to be around all of them, moving so rapidly, so many faces and stories, their essences buffeting me as they swirled past.

Wait, there was one…

A girl, beset upon, head down, on the edge of tears, her shoulders hunched to make her a smaller target, perhaps. Behind her, three taller boys, intent and predatory, calling out to her, cruel humor in their voices but without expression. This struck me as ugly. I mean I had a physical reaction to it. Fists, and a frown that bent my vision, and I was two steps away from the others, just close enough to hear the boys taunt the girl and watch things move, like the mechanism of a clock, all synchronous and seemingly inevitable, as the boys swung in an arc around her, winding closer, the spring tightening and the word "mudblood" reaching my ears and the hand of the tallest boy descending towards her shoulder. A moment that suddenly ceased to move through time.

You know, though, anything can go wrong with anything, even the inevitable, like, say, a loose tile in the floor that causes someone to lose his balance, his wand spinning through the air as he falls and striking another boy in the face, throwing up sparks, causing him to stop abruptly and collide with a third boy, who is larger and trips, propelling them both to the ground on top of the first one.

The girl was gone with a flutter, like a startled fish.

The crowd, intent on its movement, flowed over the pile of what I now recognized to be assholes, breaking over them and adding to the heap. In moments there was utter pandemonium, broken only by Ron's shout of "Break it up, midgets!" People froze, seeing us for the first time and deciding we were to be listened to.

"Ron, honestly… All right then, carefully now," Hermione said, "you need to disperse in an orderly fashion so that no one gets hurt…."

"That's right, move along," I said a little loudly, "Nothing to see here, just a few idiots on the floor…"

"What is the meaning of this?"

A wraithlike figure was ascending the stairs we'd just come from, a black-clothed figure, a gaunt man with a sharp nose and shiny black hair that stopped at his shoulders. He looked like the Jack of Bastards. His robes appeared to billow a little unnecessarily, even after he'd stopped moving. I felt that was a little suspect. He examined the situation, taking in the sullen boys at the bottom of the dogpile, the clearly unwelcome presence of Hermione and Ron, and then me. There was the usual flicker of the eyes up to my forehead, then a look of surprise, which didn't beautify his countenance any, followed by a glare of unexpected intensity.

His voice was nasal, and rasped like sand in a bathtub.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find a Potter at the center of this."

I squinted at him. "Come again?"

"It bears all of the signs – arrogance, childishness, lack of respect…" He was chewing on the words like they tasted good to him, if a little tart. "You presume to order my students to disperse. What makes you think that you have the authority or the power to tell them or anyone how they should behave?"

Where on earth was this coming from?

"Uhh…"

"And the final hallmark," he said, "weak-mindedness."

One of the girls in the hall stepped forward timidly. "Professor, the boys were after Phoebe Bennett again, and they –"

At first he didn't even look at her while he spoke. "No one is interested in your infantile prattle, Miss Preston - nor is your poking your nose into matters beyond you necessary or welcome in any way." He slowly turned his head toward her. "In fact…" He glared fiercely at her for a moment while she twitched slightly as though she were having a terrible headache. "I would say that everyone is weary of your intrusiveness and wishes you would go back in your shell. Your presence was at the very most only bearable before. Perhaps even that _boy _would agree. Twenty points from Hufflepuff for inappropriate activity on Hogwarts grounds, and I'll see you in my office Saturday at noon."

Her cheeks flushed with shame. She started to clutch pointlessly at her forearms and backed away from him. When her other friends reached for her, she moved away from them rapidly, shaking off their entreaties, and disappeared down the hall.

"Potters," he said with contempt, turning back to me. "Always jumping in where they are not welcome, always so egotistical as to imagine that they know best, always telling others how to act – it's no wonder you all live in isolation, because no one wants to suffer through your sanctimonious acts of petty heroics. It's pathetic."

The hall was rapidly emptying itself of students. It was like magic, really, though it wasn't. I was clearly expected to have a bad reaction to this. Ginny's fist was balled up, Ron had squared his shoulders and Hermione looked very angry.

Oh.

He'd just spoken ill of my family.

You know the expression "Put his foot in his mouth"? I'd just heard it the other day. Hermione had used it about Ron. It created a funny image in my mind at the time. Not exactly a literal image, but it was a funny one, and I'd told Ginny about it. She'd thought it was strange and we'd said no more of it, but it's curious what pops into your mind in moments of stress. And I suppose you can guess what I did. Accidentally, as if it weren't me, but I guess I did it.

Maybe you can't. I guess I turned his teeth into feet. It had to have been me, anyway. Who else would have done something like that? It was really weird. They made a horrible slapping sound as he attempted to tell me how he felt about that. Little toes twitched, and some of the feet were actually a little hairy. One had a sock on it.

Hermione said, "Well, that just makes my mind hurt."

"Won't be able to unsee that one," Ron said, shaking his head.

"That will teach him to run his mouth," Ginny said.

It was silent other than some groaning and various wet sounds.

"Nothing? Nobody thought that was funny." Ginny said.

"Not so much," Ron said. "Bit hard to top the choppers."

"You have many other fine qualities," I said.

"Name two."

I covered my face. "Can we make it a different number than two? I don't want another smack."

I got one anyway.

"Ow! Hey! What's wrong with Compassion and Humor?"

"Everything in its time," she said, "but I'm not sorry for you and that wasn't funny."

I laughed out loud. "Now _that_ was funny."

No one had moved to assist Snape. He'd stopped smacking and growling and was merely glaring at me hatefully. And when I say "merely" I mean that he wasn't also stabbing me with a pitchfork. This required some dealing with. He was drooling with anger. Well, maybe he was just drooling with little feet in his mouth, and exuding anger.

"All right," I said, turning to him. "I…don't…know…you. You came up to me and insulted my family. Where I come from that's not a good thing to do, especially since I've become very fond of them. You're about their age, I'm guessing. My next guess is you dislike my parents for some reason, and you think it's okay to hate me as well because I'm theirs. I can only imagine how you might have been if I were smaller and unable to defend myself – in fact, judging by the way the hall cleared and what you said to that student, you're no stranger to bullying. What kind of a creature," I said, warming up but keeping my voice even, "would attack someone presumably weaker than himself, because he was mad at someone else connected to that person? Short answer, a bastard. Long answer, someone who secretly feels helpless, who was hurt by other people and wants someone to take it out on…"

I paused, looking him in the eye. It was different than it had been. He didn't want me to. He had something to hide. He wouldn't let me see it.

Wouldn't let me see what?

Well, it's kind of like saying, don't think about a baboon's red posterior. There it is, big as life.

•

I coveted her. She was kind to me, but she didn't love me. James humiliated me and she still didn't love me, didn't come to me with sympathy and care for me. She and James had …they had finally gone off and been happy together, leaving me alone. Love was for other people, then? If that's how it was, then I would have what I could take by force. I would align myself with people of power, even though their agenda was meaningless to me, and take what I wanted from the world. But I had not imagined that those people would target her, would require her death, and in my disdain and apathy for their darker purposes, my disconnect and my ugly pride at being above it all, I had inadvertently led them straight to her. When they attacked her house, it was only the purest luck that the Weasley woman had been there in her stead. But when the Dark Lord had been destroyed, rather than relief, the only feeling I had was hatred. I hated the Dark Lord for failing me. I hated the Weasley woman for being so disgustingly noble, in a way that I could never manage. I hated Lily, for being so unreachable, even by death. And for all of these thoughts and more, of course, of course, I hated myself. And you. You are what happens when she doesn't love me and chooses him, you are what happens for other people but never for me.

•

I shivered.

"What is it, Deasil?" Ginny was holding my hand.

His face had returned to a footless state and was tight as a fist.

I couldn't answer her, only him. "You didn't know how to make it any better, when you were younger," I said. "You didn't know how to be anything more than hurt or angry. But you've seen things no one else has. Has it taught you how to make it better?"

He didn't want to hear that. "How dare you look at my thoughts?"

"Severus," I said, still even, "how many times have you used your gift to harm? Just because you could? You know better than anyone how terrible it is to feel helpless – why, then, is that the first bloody thing you do with people?"

"Don't pretend to understand me –"

"No, Severus, it's worse for you than that. I know you."

"Then you know your father is not the fine man you think he is."

"He was an arrogant kid. He grew up. What did you do?"

His wand was out almost faster than I could see, but in the same blur of motion it sailed across the room and wedged itself in a crack in the wall.

"No amount of hexing will make this untrue," I said. "You betrayed them to him, and you hate yourself."

"That's not - what just – what did you do?" he said.

"I didn't do anything," I said. "You did that. It was just really unlikely."

Something in his eyes changed. His mind was working, and I wasn't sure how. For some reason I didn't really want to go in there and find out, either. I didn't like the neighborhood at all.

The flat sound of his voice was a contrast to his manner. "I appear to have misjudged you," he said as he pulled his wand from the wall and examined it thoughtfully.

"More than you know," I said.

With another look at me, he fluttered out of the room. Perhaps billowing was the effect sought, but it was definitely fluttering.

Hermione turned to me and said, "What do you mean by 'more than you know'?"

"No idea," I said. "It just seemed better to keep him guessing."

•

We continued up towards the Headmaster's office, now temporarily occupied by Minerva until Dumbledore returned to the nearer side of wacky-land (which according to the Weasleys was as close as he got to sane at his best), and we'd stopped by a large statue, a gargoyle, and Hermione was saying something apropos of nothing about lemon curry, when without any warning my head blew up. Oh, not right away – first someone drove a hot nail into my forehead and then set fire to my stomach, and neither of those things would necessarily indicate a cranial combustion event of any kind, so it was still a bit of a surprise to me when everything went red and I became acquainted for the first time with a very particular sensation that was beyond my memory.

It was the worst damned headache you can imagine.

I couldn't think. I could barely feel hands on me, couldn't open my eyes but a little, could only faintly see Ginny, her face tense, just for a moment, so that the afterimage, which was all I seemed to have of the world, was indistinct, and dreadful, because it was leaving me, or I was leaving it, and it all was going away.

•

I could start with being cold.

Which was good, because I was able to skip some steps and infer from the cold that there was such a thing as "I", that I was, and that I could feel, and it was such that given the arbitrary choice between a state of not-being and of being, that one might find some things to support the not-being side, because it at least, to start out with, didn't have the cold, and the cold was, to put a further value to it, unpleasant.

Beyond the cold, there was also hardness, and discomfort associated with that. Apparently I had a body, and it was the thing telling me about the cold, and if a body can be said to have an ideal fit with other things around it that are not it (ah, the birth of the universe), then this was not that fit. I began to hope that I could have some influence on how they interacted, but that was not working as I might like. Parts of me could move, and parts of me would not.

_Do you know, I thought you were a statue._

Someone said that.

_I thought perhaps –_ there was a whistling, shaking , airy sound _– perhaps I was imagining you._

My awareness was uncurling like a fern. I was upright. That was okay. But still, not all of me could move. Reaching. Hands. Okay. Chest moving, breathing, though painful. My back, my sides, cold and stiff. My legs, held still, yes, held that way. One foot, able to move a little.

_But you're still here. It is difficult for me to know. Coming and going as I am._

Time to try for sight.

It was dark. A large space. Gray surfaces, patches of green. An orange glow, a fire. A fire on a stone floor overrun with algae. A man in front of the fire. An old man, a white beard. Something on the floor between him and me that I couldn't resolve. He was hunched forward, his shadow darkening the space in front of him, in which he prodded with a short stick.

"This looks like…extispicium, perhaps. Not simple, and not easy to arrange. Finding the right sacrifice – couldn't have been an accident, I must have been the one who… but I would never…"

I had no idea what he was talking about.

"I must have read about the practice…or else he knew… but it must be me, it's my hand in this, but I can't remember if I…I must be the haruspice, I must be trying to – to…" He trailed off. For a moment there was only the crackling of the wood, the old man a ruined statue surrounded by an ocean of night.

He sagged to the side, dropping his stick. It was wet with something dark.

"You're here, I think," he said. "Do you know?"

I didn't know him. I didn't know anything. I couldn't move my head very much. I was stuck.

At that moment, I found in my mind the image of a stone figure I'd seen somewhere, her hands held out.

"Do I know what?" I said.

He took a long moment getting to his feet. The dark liquid was also on his clothing, on his hands. He listed to one side for a moment, regaining his balance, and I saw that the thing in front of him was the eviscerated corpse of a large red bird.

"Why am I trying to read the future?" he said.

I was stuck, somehow, in some dark room, with a man who was insane. He thought he was some kind of sorcerer or something. Did he have me tied up? I just wanted to go home, if I knew where that was, and if I knew who I was.

"I know it's wrong – it's worse," he said, the dark carving deeply into his forehead, "because the missing times are getting longer and it's so hard…so hard to find the difference between us, so I can draw the line. Know who I am."

He took a step toward me, slipping a little in the entrails on the floor, and I felt a rising panic.

"Find yourself again, and you can help me," he said, his voice full of air, as if there were a hand on his throat, "draw the line and make him go away." His face was in shadow, but as he finished speaking I thought I saw a flash of red in his eyes, as though they were reflecting a spark from the fire, and I wanted to run, but I couldn't, and my head began to ache.

"No," he said, backing up, "I have him for now."

With that he turned and shuffled into the darkness beyond the fire.

What was that all about.

I mean, get serious. This crazy old guy has me bound up somehow in this dark place, he was killing birds and trying to tell the _future_? Give me a break. Get serious. What is this place, anyway? What is that - some kind of statue, the giant head of some guy - and what looks like a giant skeleton, like a snake or something, I mean what kind of freak show is this? Get serious, I've got to get out of here. Get serious! "Get serious!"

I guess I shouted that last. I heard it echoing off of the walls. The walls, I couldn't move because that's where I was. Half in the wall, half out. I must have appeared here. I knew who I was, and I knew somehow for the first time what I was shouting.

"Get Sirius!"

The next thing I heard was, "We're coming! Where are you?"

I knew that voice. It was Ron's. I kept bellowing until I heard them approaching and saw lights moving toward me. Ron, Hermione and someone else I didn't know came past the fire and stopped a few feet away, taking in the scene. Then Hermione jumped forward and grasped my hand. "Merlin," she said, "how did this happen?"

"Just a little bad aim," the man said, "nothing to get in a twist over, he got himself in there and he can get himself out, right, Harry?"

"Er, we don't call him that now, he goes by –"

"He'll always be Harry to me," the man said, stepping closer. His face, though a little thin, was a good face, and his dark eyes glittered with the suggestion of humor.

"Come here, then," he said. "Come to your uncle Padfoot."

I remembered.

The world jumped a little in front of me, and the stiffness was gone, along with any ability I had to hold myself up. But wiry arms caught me, not letting me fall. Just like they used to. I wouldn't fall off the broom. I wouldn't fall off the roof. I would never fall. And something else. I remembered when I wouldn't sleep, when I wouldn't settle, disturbed with the wordless fear that all children must have suffered, and my father's weary voice. "Get Sirius."

He would always calm me down.

"Ahh, Harry, you've grown a bit – are you able to stand?"

I felt like a rusty spring. "Only a little."

Wait.

Oh!

"We're in the Chamber of Secrets," I said.

"Right in one," Sirius said.

"Augurium ex avibus," Hermione said softly, looking at the dead bird.

"Dumbledore was here," I said.

Ron had been looking around but now fixed his gaze on me, saying nothing.

Hermione dragged the bird carcass to the fire and dumped it into the center of the flames, which roared upwards for a moment before subsiding.

"He's in some kind of trouble," I said. "He was asking for my help."

'What did he say?" Hermione said.

"Where's Ginny?" I said.

"He said 'where's Ginny'?"

"No. Where's. Ginny?" I said. "She didn't come down here, did she? It would be too…"

"Too what?" Her voice came from not far away. I willed my legs to have some strength and took a few steps toward the sound. In a moment she appeared out of the darkness, looking a little pale. But never more beautiful. A great wrench gripped my chest as I thought of her here, what it took, and before I had too much time to think about it she ran forward and flung her arms around me.

"You didn't need to come," I said into her hair.

"You were here," she said. Her voice was steady. "I came to be with you."

•

A/N: For anyone wanting to add a little more color to the story, I have a myspace music page where I'm beginning to put music that I've written to describe some of the characters and scenes. If you liked the scores to the first three films, then this may amuse you. It's at myspace dot com slash phantomlimbscore. That doesn't make this song fiction at all – just fiction with underscore. Or maybe it makes the music fanscore. I hope you enjoy it.

I need to thank Jules for reminding me of how Deasil sees things – if this one's a little hard to follow, especially outside the theater, I have the dubious honor (read as "cop-out") of passing the buck to her. I also need to thank the smartest Dane I know, Freja, for encouraging me to within an inch of my life. Lastly, I borrowed a line from Dashiell Hammett. I hope he and his estate don't mind, and I hope he would be at least a little amused at the idea that his words would end up in Harry Potter fanfiction. But I should state that no money changes hands, I don't own anything but my own non-derivative thoughts, and this is all in fun.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Trelawney slept in a small single bed in the Astronomy tower. The noise of the other professors and students, the clamor of their thoughts and impulses and probabilities, had clouded her eye, she said. Living with the Sight was its own reward, and made the desire for a set of rooms seem shallow. What she took for herself, then, was a folding cot that she had had since her youth, and a place at one side of her classroom, a curved length of wall, where she huddled under a purple velvet blanket, her face to the wall, in parenthesis.

Asceticism was her response to the other excess in her life – the vain pleasure she took from the awe and regard for the mystical that people laid at her feet. Others who lacked the Sight feared it, idolized it or disregarded it entirely, but she took each response in very much the same way, because ultimately from her vantage point they were similar. Each one was at heart made of distance and misunderstanding. But each one gave her tools to compose herself with, and an unspeaking hidden part of her welcomed this, as she had been a shy girl and had always felt out of place.

The Sight even took her shyness and cast it in a new form, as the backdrop to her uniqueness and the special burden of her vision; and (to her secret disgust) the apologetic and nervous nature she'd had as a girl had transformed into something that to all but her resembled humility. And she would subtly imply that the bareness of her existence was to leave space for visions of the infinite, so that their wonders would have a suitable vessel. That worldly comforts muddied the waters. That those gifted with visions were used to an indifferent or even hostile public – that they were comfortable with suffering.

And somehow, it became true. It was the punishment she felt she deserved, for the half-truths and the false stature she had attained, her place in the world that she could take no credit for.

It was worse, now, because _Harry_ had returned. She had dreamed his vanishing one night when he was a child and breathed an unworthy sigh of relief, because it meant that her vision of his future would not ruin at least one person's life with dread and sacrifice and being robbed of the present, which, as any seer will tell you, is the most precious of all things. She knew that if he had returned from somewhere presumably ignorant of what his place was in things, what his future was to be, that people who knew of it would not be able to resist that most foolish (to her mind) and human of foibles, the desire to know the endings of things before reaching them, and that they would lay this burden upon him, destroying his present, his presence in the moment, and (since our essences exist only in the now) his mortal momentary soul, and forcing him into a hollow simulation of life, a rote narration, always looking to the future and putting off living until the climactic foreseen moment had passed, only to find that life itself had passed with the moment. Her dream meant that he was free, for whatever uncertain amount of time, to have his moments for himself, and that his life, however short, would be unfettered by an indelible path.

But the night after she found out that _Harry_ had returned, she woke from a fitful sleep, laced with perspiration, and stumbled out of bed, somewhat disoriented, until she stopped at the center of her room and found herself facing them all. Empty seats, in concentric rows, rising up into the dimness of the room, but their emptiness was no less an accusation, a place holder for the dead that she had seen, the deaths her students were forced to imagine, that she encouraged them to augur into being as fears, as care, as a frisson of worry to warn of the transient, cruel and purposeless nature of life.

She was judged and found guilty. Her being, her now neglected momentary soul, felt pressed thin, as between slides of glass, a sliver of her starkly vivisected, and she became aware for the first time in years of her feelings, in a burst of inward perception that was dreadfully clear in a way that no vision had ever been. The feeling of guilt was unbearable to her, a brittle and crushing feeling in her chest, and she knew, with a harsh clarity, that she could not live with it.

So it is that any story you tell yourself enough times will ultimately become like the truth to you, and the next morning she found herself telling the lie again to her reflection in the mirror, that her vision was a gift, a bitter one perhaps but a precious rarity, and, though painful for those who lacked the ability to know themselves, it was the stark light of truth, which could never be silenced.

It was in this way that she did not end her life.

•

What a load of monkey bollocks. I heard this story from the woman herself. Oh, it wasn't right away. The first thing that happened when she walked into the infirmary and saw me was that she had no idea who I was, and the second thing was that Ginny introduced us with a slightly wry expression on her face, and the third thing was that she shouted, "no, no, you can't," and then wilted like an orchid under a blowtorch. It was only when she was revived and had demanded that the others leave the room for a moment in an elaborately fluttery way that she told me that story, seemingly apropos of nothing.

All right, so I hadn't been around very long but I hadn't been knitted yesterday, and I knew that nobody could tell the whole truth and her account was as fraught with drama as anyone else's, if not more so, but there was some degree of truth in it. And I wasn't happy to be away from Sirius, having just met the man again, and I'll get back to that, really, things didn't happen in the order I'm telling them but what can I do, but anyway I had some time to kill before the doctor returned from fixing the tender limbs of neophyte broom-riders, and there was something important from this, something I needed to know about. Before I was born this woman had had a fit and babbled a bit of bad poetry at a job interview in a pub that apparently defined my destiny. I wanted to ask her a few questions and maybe try to make sense out of this before I figured out how to turn her into a toilet seat or something.

You see, she was sorry, if only for an evening, that she had sent around twenty years' worth of hapless students of the dubious art of fortune-telling into a long woozy nightmare of apprehension – a twilight-sleep nightmare, where everything was ambiguous and vaguely threatening and hard to awaken from. And she should have been sorry. But what she wasn't sorry about was more my concern.

After her story was told, with a lot of fanning of hands and scarf-waving (apparently her ascetic existence allowed for a preponderance of scarves, which maybe drew in and entangled the more obscure strands of prophecy like they seemed to do with her frizzy brown and gray hair), I put my hand up to stop her talking. I think in my moment of marshalling my thoughts and my restraint I must have closed my eyes and looked thoughtful, because she said, "Dear boy. Are you Seeing something?"

I could even hear the capital letter.

My unfriendly look made her silent.

"Do you know what I find suspect?" I said.

She shook her head slowly.

"You resent me. The fact that I'm here causes you problems of conscience."

"My conscience is clean," she said.

"That's probably because you don't keep it on you. You've got it locked up in a tower somewhere so that it won't get dirty. The problem is that you didn't stay up there with it. Don't you realize what you've done to me?"

"My boy, I have done nothing –"

"Nothing except tell a man that I would be the one to kill an evil wizard, and that one of us would have to die. Kind of giving away the ending, don't you think?"

"The truth…the truth," she said, "is often painful, but it cannot be denied."

"Okay. Assuming that you're right about the future, and I am having a hard time with assuming that right now, and if I am to take you at your word that you were glad I wasn't going to be around because my life would not be turned into a series of inevitable steps, then why would you have said anything about it to begin with? If my being self-determining is so important to you, then why wouldn't you let things unfold as they would instead of meddling with my life? Oh, wait, I know, you wanted a _job_."

"Professor Dumbledore…demanded proof, I couldn't expect him to accept me on faith alone –"

"So you put up my life as collateral. A small trade for bed and board and a bully pulpit."

"But it was all the truth!" She was pleading. "You are the one! It was never the Longbottom boy. Only while You-Know-Who thought it was, but now that you're back, it has to be you. If you had stayed away it would still be Longbottom."

"Who's You-Know-Who?" I said.

"The dark lord, boy!"

"So because he thinks it's me, it is?"

"Yes. That is how the prophecy –"

"Who told him the prophecy?"

"I…I'm not certain. The dark lord has resources –"

"It doesn't really matter, though – he wouldn't have come for me if he hadn't heard it, though, isn't that so?"

She was quiet.

"And he knows I'm back?"

No answer but a short, trembling nod.

"Who told him I was back?" Actually I had an answer for that, in the back of my head. Or in the back of someone else's head. Yeah. Maybe. "Never mind. That can't be helped now. The point is, if I hadn't come back…"

I was having a thought.

"If I hadn't come back…"

It was a little slow to congeal.

"If I hadn't come back, then they would never have been able to kill him."

What the hell.

"They would have died trying, but he would have come back, because I would have been alive."

I became aware of the boniness of her face, the spareness of her. She'd been made by someone stingy about materials and not overly concerned with quality.

"And you knew this, of course," I said. "But you also knew how miserable you would feel to have to face me again. The one time you were right, and you couldn't bear to be. Now you could have done the right thing a long time ago and not said anything about what you saw in my future, and you know what would have happened? No Molly in a coma, no scar on my head, no abduction, no Ginny in the Chamber, no Neville carrying this horrible burden…"

I felt both worse and better, which was about right for me. It was all lousy and no mistake, but I was fairly certain it wasn't my fault. It wasn't my FAULT!

"But that would have required ethics," I said," which you don't have. You're only in this for yourself."

She was smaller, somehow, in front of me. Her shoulders shrank, and her eyes seemed overlarge on her face, and I was for a brief moment reminded of Pella.

"I have a suggestion," I said. "Why don't you go find something to do that doesn't wreck _other_ people's lives?"

She left rapidly, her shoes smacking annoyingly on the stone floor. It was one of those sounds that makes you mad for no reason at all. Great, I thought. She gets the last word. Smack, smack, smack, smick, smack, smick, smack. I hated that.

•

I skipped something here. My apologies. It's just that the whole business with Trelawney really, really irritated me, and I wanted to get past it sooner. I probably should have begun with getting out of the chamber, and what it was like to try to squeeze a little talk out of any of the people I was with.

We made our way out of the chamber, Ginny at my right and Sirius at my left. Hermione paused only to pull a small shriveled thing from the ashes of the fire and cradle it carefully in her hands, and Ron took a moment to look at the giant snake bones nearby before shaking his head and saying, "Bloody hell, Neville," in a low voice. I was a little woozy and so mostly what I noticed was the bony strength of Sirius' hands and the tender grip of Ginny's, and the dark and coolness, and the faint dripping sounds surrounding us.

One of the difficult things about being able to hear someone's thoughts is trying not to when you really want to. And although a part of me wanted to ask Sirius a myriad of questions, I really, really wanted to know how Ginny was doing, but I knew I wasn't supposed to take it from her. We'd had a talk about that, which I will get to, but even if we hadn't I still knew it was a bad idea to listen in on her thoughts. Her strength and her sense of self were built on control of who she was and the ability to protect herself. In a slightly drunken way, my mind kept reorienting on how she'd come down there for the first time in years, to the place of her nightmares, just to find me and bring me out, and it kept twisting in me, folding something over in my chest, and I found myself tearing up as I looked at her determined profile, at her perfect willful nose, and I mean willful, it made me think of the curves in wrought iron, of that metal thing on the front of a locomotive that keeps things off the track, my but that was poetic, I'd have to remember that one and whisper it to her breathily someday and maybe I'd get lucky, must still be a little woozy, get lucky indeed, where'd I hear that stupid expression, and the thought of being with her in that way, out of nowhere, stirred me powerfully with its sweetness, and I stumbled a little, because I felt it in my lower back, and she was immediately there to prop me up, her hip against mine and her arm under my shoulder and around my back, and it was a lot to take, a lot to bear, desire and sympathy and respect and the need to comfort, everything, and I had to say something, anything.

So I said to Sirius, "Didn't you used to have a dog?"

The way they flanked and supported me made me remember the morning hugs I would often give Molly and Arthur, when I would find them together in the kitchen, making breakfast, on a short tether to each other. She would be bustling over the stove or floating dishes from the cupboard, and sometimes he would make tea or help with the cooking but often enough he would just be there, like a balloon tied to the wrist of a child, his restored height still new to him and making him unconsciously angle his head down, as though it would bump the ceiling. I could always find them together and so it was always a simple matter of opening both arms and scooping them both into an embrace. Molly would continue what she was doing but say something welcoming, and Arthur would pat my back in a way that softened his height, recalling a shadow of who he'd been for so long. Together in one lump they had been infuriating and lovable, and separate they were the same but differently distributed, though in general far less infuriating as they had dropped the habit of confining me to the present - like being sent to my room without any history, in a way.

"I'll show you later," he said. We were passing statues of snakes.

"Must be an old dog."

"It feels that way," he said.

I figured that would have to wait.

"Gin," I said, lowering my voice.

"Later," she said, not looking at me.

Okay, then, that too would have to wait. I stumbled a little over some debris as I turned my head to find the unspeakable. "Hermione?"

"What is it, D-Deasil?" She spoke haltingly. Probably trying to keep her feet under her. We were approaching what looked like the wrong end of a sewer pipe. Surrounding its entrance (or rather, exit) were countless skeletons of small animals.

The first one's always silent, I thought to myself.

"Have you figured out what the –"

"Not here," she said quickly.

Huh.

"Ron?"

"Yeah," he said. There was a weight in his voice. Not sure if it was anger or fatigue or what.

"Never mind," I said.

"None of us is helping, eh?" Sirius said.

"Not one of you," I said. "I should have walked back by myself."

"As if you could have," Ginny said. She had a point – I was still stiff and weak.

"But wouldn't it have been better for –"

"Later," she said again.

"Had you done this before? The apparating business," Sirius asked.

"Yes, he has," Hermione said, answering for me.

When she didn't elaborate, Ron said, "There have been a few times when he –"

"Ron!" Hermione said.

"What is it, Hermione?" He sounded a little tired.

"Now is not the time," she said quietly.

"This is ridiculous," I said. "Nobody can complete a thought around here. All right then, how about this. So, Sirius, I hear you were in prison and I gather it was wrongfully so, so I'm glad you're out. I'd like to say I missed you, but I don't really remember much about anything, but I'll bet if I could, then I would. I mean if I could remember anything, then I'd have missed you. Ginny, thanks for coming. I never would have asked that of you, but I can see that's not the point. Whatever the point may be or end up being, that isn't. Uh, it. Hermione, thank you as well for coming, though I have to say you're being a little weird, and I've just seen a lot of weird so I know it when I see it, though it is surely a question of degree, and I don't want to make you think that I think you're being really weird because of what 'a little weird' must mean to me as opposed to most people. Ron…I think you are a little unsure as to how to feel about all this, and me in particular, but I'm wondering, just wondering, if that precludes our finding a pub fairly soon after we're out of this Gothic sewer."

After a pause, I heard his voice somewhere behind me. "No, it doesn't."

"Ronald!"

"Give it a rest, love," he said to Hermione. "I'm not going to punish _him_. He's been having a rough time of it."

"How do you know what 'Gothic' is?" Ginny asked.

"Later," I said.

•

Okay, so after that, and after that abrasive pas de deux with the mystical Madame laFuture, and in the wake of her quivery departure, my fellow intrepid sewer divers began to tentatively peek in the doorway, or anyway, Hermione peeked, Ron looked questioningly, and then Ginny and Sirius barged in and came right to me, where I was seated on a bed in the corner holding my head. It wasn't hurting, or actually it was hurting but not in any magically-induced way, just the old familiar nothing-makes-any-sense way.

"Are you all right?" Ginny said. Her voice was round with sympathy and her hand fell on my shoulder, rousing me from where I was.

"I'll get to that," I said. I spent a split second looking into her eyes, trying not to hear anything or tell anything, just to look at her, and feel a bit cheated, for reasons we have not yet gotten into, before looking away to Sirius.

The light of the medical wing was not doing him any favors.

I hadn't had anyone give me any dictates about not looking too closely at the man, not letting myself see what was there, not having impressions, or feeling one way or the other about it for that matter, so I did just that.

It was an aspect of him, a character to his gaze, that I couldn't make sense of, because I'd never seen it before. It looked like the inevitable was approaching, and it was an unequivocal horror, something that was unbearable, or should have been unbearable, that should have destroyed one's mind and soul, that should have been the most horrific nightmare conceivable - but for the knowledge (which was the thing I saw in his eyes) that it would be inexorably lived through, that even against one's will it would be survived, and returned to the next day, perhaps slightly different but still excruciatingly horrible. And that as terrible as the horror that was coming would be, it was the continuing that was the worst of it. This is what the prison had done to him: it showed him that the worst thing imaginable was just living. One day following another.

"I know I don't look well," he said.

"Did I say anything?" I said.

"You didn't have to say anything."

I didn't have to say anything.

If someone does something wrong, something terrible, and we are mad at them, we punish them. If someone does something wrong and we want it not to happen again, we teach them what was wrong about it, get them to really understand it, and then what? It would follow that we let them go afterwards because if we didn't, and they just stayed in a prison somewhere, we wouldn't know if we'd taught them, if they'd learned anything, if the problem were solved – and we'd really just be throwing them away because we couldn't figure out what to do about them and didn't want to think about it anymore.

Sirius got thrown away.

All I could remember of him was an idea, really, a small child's construct of memory, made out of feelings, and senses other than sight. A diaphanous impression of safety, of knowing that fear would end, and that I would not fall. I knew nothing about him as a man. He could have been a hero or a bastard. What I knew was that this fundament in my mind that made it through fourteen years of forced forgetting came from a man, and that that man had been scored and ground down until his bones showed, until his face had become more human-_like_ than human, and regardless of what he might have done, there was nothing, nothing at all good that would ever come from his time in a cell.

"I plan to get over it," he said.

I wanted to know what put him there, so that whatever it was, I could disable it like a bomb, field-strip it like a rifle, dismantle it like a government. Or, quite possibly, destroy it utterly, like a lightning bolt striking a fencepost.

"Can you talk about this?" I said.

"Can you?" he said.

I immediately felt like a whiny, over-sensitive, bleeding-hearted something-or-other. Whatever it would be that would possess all of those qualities in a signature sort of way, such that if one were looking for all of them in a tidy package, someone helpful would point them in my direction without hesitation.

Looking at my hands, I said, "I'm up for whatever you are."

"Harry…" he said. With what were audible creaks and pops, he sank down so he could look me in the eye. "What happened to me is over."

Everything I wanted to say, amazingly enough, didn't make it out. Things like "Doesn't look like it's over," or "But it'll take years for you to get over that," or "If you looked any more haunted there'd be, you know, a mist and weird lights and chains and, er, other – spooky… accoutrements – I'm babbling, right? Hi there, I'm Deasil," you know, helpful crap like that.

"Whereas what is happening to you…" he said.

It was a pregnant pause, a waddling, six-week-overdue pregnant pause, a post-fart-at-the-coronation pause.

"Is just getting started," I said.

"Wh-…" Ginny said. She looked at Sirius like he'd… well, like he'd said the ugly truth instead of breaking it to me gently.

"I knew this was a bad idea," Hermione said.

"Why don't you ask Deasil what he thinks?" Ron said.

Honestly, it was all I could do to catch up. Still didn't know what kind of a guy Sirius was. Still wasn't clear on the weird stuff from Hermione. Was increasingly irritated at the bind I was in with Ginny, which I'll get to in a little bit. But it was important to find out what it was that I thought about all of this, and all of it, and him.

I had no idea. So I thought I'd sort of plunge in a direction and see if I hit my head.

"You're on to something," I said to him.

He didn't smile at me. Not even a little. His mouth didn't move. The lines in his face did not bend in the slightest. But I liked how dark his eyes were. And I guessed that in lieu of smiling, that was what would happen. You'd like some part of him. And that seemed like a lot to get from him.

So I was all right with it.

Hermione was still snarking in the background. "Not four days out of prison, and in a _school_, no less, and around all these … sensitive matters, with absolutely no –"

"You don't trust what you can't quantify," Sirius said without looking at her, without his face changing at all.

It was something in his tone that completely silenced her.

"Much less what you can't comprehend," he said. "And there's nothing in your Ministry-approved library of so-called mysteries that would begin to make you understand me."

"Hermione, he _is_ innocent, remember?" Ron said off in the room somewhere.

"Was," Sirius said.

Her voice, after a pause, was like pebbled glass. "I realize, I – I know it had to have been awful, more awful that I can know, and I know I'm slow to trust –" At that I almost looked at her. "- but I'm only thinking of what's – what's…" She stopped short of saying "best" or "right", I imagined, probably realizing she had no idea what that was or might be.

"There's nothing I can say. I'm sorry, Mister Black," she said.

"I've been getting that a lot," he said.

This time I liked his nose a little. It wasn't large but it sort of came at you. It looked like the beginning of an argument.

"You were imprisoned because they thought you killed me," I said.

"Yes," he said. "Easy enough mistake for my best friends to make."

Not over that yet. Check. "Why did they make it?"

"They were fooled by another one of their best friends, who – unlike me – was an utter heap of shit."

"They seem like such bright people," I said.

"Over-generous with their good will."

"How did it happen?" I said. I was hoping to corral his ire a little, to maybe use it for rocket fuel to propel the story along so I could begin to figure this out.

"We had this – I won't call him a friend, he was more of an ankle-biter. Peter Pettigrew." Contempt. "Not smart like Remus or James, not adventurous like we all were. He just needed people around him, to tell him who to be and what to do. I didn't think he was capable of doing anything at all on his own. We let him tag along at school, let him in our little clique, let him feel important because he was with us. As if that would be such a great thing. As if we were anything more than cocky young bastards, full of ourselves and convinced of our own brilliance." He paused to cough. I guessed he hadn't used his voice this much in a long while, and I wondered what it would be like to be quiet, day after day, because there was no one at all to talk to.

"And it's not that he had no ability as a wizard. He managed a few major spells that James and I had worked on for a year or more. He was like a wand, really. He could function, if he were pointed at something."

He conjured a low seat and made himself more comfortable. When he settled he became very still, like he'd been there forever. It seemed that he was accustomed to not moving.

"When the war began in earnest, he was terrified. It seemed like he couldn't make up his mind whether to cling to our robes or hide, or so we thought. He was disappearing all of the time. After you were attacked, he fell into a deep depression, and started drinking more than usual. He said it was because James and Lily had chosen the wrong secret-keeper, that he hadn't been up to the task, that he was weak and someone must have read his mind, that he'd nearly gotten you killed and that Molly was as good as dead. Clearly he was wrong about that." His hair was very dark and shiny, as if his head had been doused in water. "And everything else he lied about. He was despondent because his true master had vanished, and all of the betrayal and the machinations he'd put into place were pointless. He'd broken his bonds with us because he thought we would be defeated, and when you banished Voldemort from his body he had no hole left to crawl back into."

"When I banished…"

Hermione said, "Actually we don't know exactly-"

"Nearer Harry than anyone else," Sirius said.

"My mother had a lot to do with it," Ginny said at my side.

Sirius was still for a moment.

"You have a point, girl," he said.

Huh.

"So the war had found Peter losing his taste for life, and developing his taste for alcohol," Sirius said, stretching the last word out like it was a little pain that he wanted to last. "Any shit pub, the darker the better. We dragged him out of a fair few. The one he favored was not far from your home."

Oh, come _on_, I thought. There's got to be more than one shit pub around the British Isles, I mean what are the _odds_? Is it really possible that every bad thing in my life is centered on one miserable drunk-tank in Scotland? No, now, let me not get ridiculous.

Sirius was looking at me. His gaze was not a light thing. It was practically like someone leaning on me. "What?" he said.

It was too early to take points from him.

"Forget it," I said. "You were saying."

After a moment he sighed and coughed. "He was in the pub the night your home was attacked. Tossing back a few while his master."

It was as if someone put their hand on a record, stopping it.

A moment passed.

"While his master went to kill the Potter family. A little numbing of his conscience, to pass the time. He'd drink, and then turn into a rat."

"So he told someone about the… no, you lost me."

"Peter could transform himself," Sirius said.

"Okay."

"Then he'd –" He looked at me again. I'm saying it was like him resting his weight on my forehead. "Peter could transform himself into a rat."

"_That_ was it." I nodded.

"He would drink, and then transform, and his mind would become simpler, and the alcohol would have a stronger affect on him. It also got him out of paying his tab. So he'd had a couple of shots, and then transformed when no one was looking, and was lying along the bottom of the bar, probably soaking himself with spilled whiskey. Then he overheard some drunks talking about a prophecy and began to… what is it?"

My head was in my hands. That woman. I hoped the pay at Hogwarts was terrible.

"Just life," I said. "I've heard a bit of this part. He heard a bunch of drunken douchebags talking about a prophecy that was made before I was born."

"What's a douchebag?" he said.

"Magical people don't have those," Hermione said, being helpful. "They just use charms for… sorry."

I was glad my gaze could at least bring some things to a close. "It's a derogatory term, and we'll get into it later. People used to say it… sometime. I don't know when. I don't know why I remember it. I don't really know why it's a … in any event, I know what he heard. I also know that Arthur Weasley wandered in around that time in a very suggestible state brought on by the shock of having his wife in his head with him and heard those self-same assholes – wizards do have assholes, don't they?"

"Every one does and they're all about the same," he said before Hermione could help.

He had nice sideburns for a man fresh out of prison.

"Those self-same assholes," I said, "thought it would be funny to send Arthur on a little bit of a fool's errand, I mean it was sort of the ultimate fool's errand, the woman was always talking over my shoulder, and I only figured out the other day it was because she thought one of them was standing there, only invisible, and they also told him it would be good if I forgot every day that passed, and so I was brought up to be sort of nothing, you know, a brand new empty slate every day, like a… a beer can from an endless six-pack, always the same, and I don't know how I could have grown up or anything, and I didn't even remember women, I mean the second one I met knocked me out, I mean I literally…"

"Breathe," he said.

As it turned out that was a good idea. "Okay, you're up," I said.

"I didn't know what the prophecy was," he said. If dragging a lead pipe across concrete could be said to have a pleasant quality, it would be in the same sense that his voice did. "James and Lily kept it from me. At first I only knew that a prophecy existed, but gradually I gathered that it was about you, but they refused to talk about it. We fought about that. I wanted to know so that I could help to protect you, and they wanted to keep it secret from everyone. I tried to explain that I had ways of hiding you that they had no inkling of, due to my connections as head of a dark family, but in the end my insistence only led them to believe I might not be on their side. Since they couldn't depend on a werewolf to safeguard their secrets, and since they no longer trusted me, they turned to the one person they could rely on – their old friend Peter."

"They were afraid–" Hermione said.

"Worst thing about fighting terrorists," Sirius said. "Fear makes you lose your common sense.

"So Peter has given their location to his master and then gone to the pub to try not to think about what he's done to his friends, and he hears a garbled version of the prophecy, and pieces it together, and realizes something: he's never going to be free of Voldemort. He's just given Voldemort the location of the only person who can defeat him, and obviously the infant will be killed easily, and so the deal he made out of fear is one he will have to endure for the rest of his life. He hates his master and he hates his friends. He hates James and Lily because it's either that or admit he's as good as killed them. He hates me because I always looked down on him and he's afraid of me. He hates himself, in his miserable rat heart, because he's pathetic and fearful, and he's made the wrong decision about who to stand by. He feels the mark given to him by Voldemort burning on his arm, and he is filled with dread. The drinking does its work and he passes out in a dark corner.

"When he wakes up everyone's celebrating. Voldemort's dead. He can't believe it. By some miracle the prophecy appears to be true, and the child has become the Boy-Who-Lived, and for a moment Peter thinks he's free.

"Then he realizes that the people surrounding him aren't his friends anymore. They don't know what he's done, and they can never learn the truth about what he is – a traitor. He has escaped a lifetime of dread and powerlessness for one with different varieties of the same. He's left himself with no escape route.

"So he hangs on, and some years go by. He's too afraid of dying to kill himself, but he hates himself and everyone else too much to live. When James and Lily try to help him, thinking that he still feels guilty for the attack on Harry, he rejects them. When Remus and I come to get him out of a bar or a dungeon, he just sneers at us. He's just waiting for the drinking to catch up with him and maybe kill him, if he's lucky."

For a moment, I thought of the man in front of me hunched over in a dark cell, wishing for his own death. I wasn't sure if the thought was from within him or if it just appeared in my head, but I was pretty sure he'd thought about it when he was in prison, and cursed himself for his weakness.

I didn't. Curse him, I mean. His being here, solid and himself, made him seem miraculous to me. I thought to myself, _I would have died. I would have dried up and crumbled._

His voice startled me a little. "Then one night, around four years after Voldemort vanished, two things happened. One was that Arthur Weasley vanished, along with you. And the other thing was that Peter felt a sharp burning pain on his forearm.

"He knew that it could only mean that his master was not dead, and that Peter would surely pay for what he had done, one way or another.

"So he decided that if he were well and truly buggered, then he would not go down alone. He would do as much damage as possible to the people who he blamed for his misfortune. And that is what he did. He waited until it was James' turn to retrieve him from a pub, and he made sure to mumble a bit about being afraid and keeping secrets before passing out on the couch in the parlor. While James and Lily were sleeping, he broke into their dungeon and stole back his master's wand, which he'd found during his forays as a rat, and then left. He wrote them a letter saying that I had been the one who told Voldemort where their house was because I had taken the information from Peter's mind. Peter had been too weak to stop me then and I had threatened to kill him if he told them about it. The Blacks had been a dark family for generations, and my true nature had revealed itself. I had stolen Voldemort's wand back and taken Harry to sacrifice him so that Voldemort could return, and killed Arthur because he had gotten in the way. Peter hoped that the letter would reach them in time but I was after him now.

"Immediately thereafter, he wrote a letter to me. It contained most of what I've told you. He said that my friends didn't trust me, and that we were both alone. He knew the prophecy and felt the mark burn and Harry was gone, so he was convinced that Voldemort would win in the end. He said that I would die in prison knowing that my best friends thought I had betrayed them and killed their son for Voldemort."

He paused for a moment, conjuring water in a glass and drinking it. His simple movements, his tending to his own needs, his life outside. What was gone for so long, but was now his again, in deliberate motions, with nothing wasted.

"The parchment burned up in my hands and was gone forever," he said.

Lousy, I thought.

"I wasn't thinking very clearly, but I did manage to notice that the owl was a Hogwarts owl with the school circlet around one leg, and so I went there to find him. I'd been through the school and had almost given up when I remembered the house we went to when Remus was changing. I charged in without a thought in my head and found myself waking up some time later with my wand at my feet, burn marks on the walls, and nothing left of Peter but a finger. Naturally it was the middle one."

"He'd blown himself up?"

"With my wand."

"Someone could tell?"

"The Priori Incantatem spell shows what the last spell a wand cast was."

"Uhhh…"

"What are you thinking?" he said.

"Was it in good shape?"

"What's that?"

"The finger."

"How do you mean?"

"Burnt up? Ashy? Nail broken?"

"Not that I remember." He was remembering a sheared-off digit in his hand, an extra, like a visual pun for something.

I wasn't reading his mind – I could just tell.

"So it was in pretty good condition?"

"I suppose."

"What kind of explosive spell leaves only a single undamaged middle finger behind?"

My buddy, the room-clearing silence.

"I thought of that as well, for all the good it did," he said. "A few moments later the room was full of Aurors, I was stunned and carried off, and people stopped listening to anything I said."

"Hermione," I said, not looking away from him, "how are you feeling?"

"Like a world-class idiot," she said from behind me. Her voice was a little muffled, as if her hand were covering her face.

"Just checking," I said. "Sirius, she's one of the two smartest people I know and she's heard all of this before and _she_ still didn't..."

"Who's the other one?" Ron said, before grunting in pain.

"No one _wanted_ to know," Sirius said. "No veritaserum, barely any trial. When they stood me up in the courtroom, I couldn't even turn to see James and Lily, though I knew they were there. There were no arguments, and after I called them all stupid bastards I was not allowed to speak. Dumbledore made quick work of it all. The last daylight I'd seen had been the afternoon before I went after Peter. I couldn't remember what any of it looked like. Not if it were bright, overcast or raining." His words were slowing. "I was stunned and taken away. The next time I opened my eyes it was to a stone ceiling."

I heard Hermione's breath leave her.

He became even more still. A voice came from his general direction, more a sound from nature than a voice, because voices have feeling.

"My time passed.

"And from my cell, I had no way of finding out what had happened to you."

I was going to have to save my feelings for later.

"And then someone figured it out," I said.

"A man came to my cell one day. I heard him through the slit in the door. He said he was here to represent me, that he knew I was innocent, and that I'd be out within the week. I said nothing to him. I was a dog at the time. He was the first person who'd spoken to me in years. I'd forgotten my cell had a door. He said he understood my silence, and he'd be back with further news.

"Two days later he said I should prepare myself to leave the next day. He was trying to avoid having me appear in court, because he thought I wouldn't want to be around all of those people. He was right about that.

"The following day my door opened. The man stood outside. There were no aurors, no dementors. He didn't have a wand out. He was a little short, I think, though it's hard for me to really judge. I hadn't seen anyone else in fourteen years. To me he was tall enough. I was scared of him. He had to come in and get me to go out. We went to the portkey point and he took me to Dunstanburgh Castle, up on the coast of England. I got cleaned up and I slept for a day or so, and he had me looked over and given a large number of strengthening and replenishing potions. When I was well enough to move around easily by myself, he came to my room and gave me a pouch. It contained a large number of galleons and a map of Britain, and it was of a slightly curious design, in that it appeared to be made to be carried, not by a man, but by a dog.

"I didn't have to ask who had paid for the barrister or who had gotten me out of prison. I thanked the man, and shortly after he left the room, I collected my things, transformed, managed to get the pouch strap over my head and left.

"I wandered at first. Not too concerned about going anywhere, just wanting to be outside, see trees and run when I could. I changed into a man to eat, and sometimes to sleep in a bed, and sometimes to walk, but it was easier as a dog. Sometimes I'd read about myself in the newspaper, and it made it harder to return, because often the story would be 'ex-convict Sirius Black has disappeared' or some such fear-mongering nonsense. But I knew I couldn't stay away forever. It was only a couple of weeks, really, and then I found myself crouching as a dog on the edge of the Potter grounds, looking at James sitting alone in the garden with his head in his hands. He was distracted enough that I was able to go right up to him without his noticing."

"What did you do?" I said.

"I lifted up my leg and pissed on his robes."

"You do make an impression," I said.

"I'll go along with that," Ron said. "The first thing he said to me when we met was, 'Let's see your sodding rat.' I thought it was prison slang or something. I hadn't had a rat in years…"

It was one of those pauses that Ron regretted creating.

"But your father," Sirius said, "is not a fool, at least not any more. The first thing he said to me was."

I waited.

"The first thing he said was, 'I can get down lower if it will help.'"

My dad was clearly someone to be reckoned with. He was someone I wanted to learn from. Even if he'd been completely wrong about Sirius, and an utter jackass to Snape, he'd figured out somewhere along the line what to say to people.

"I transformed and told him he couldn't get any lower than he was. He agreed. We went on from there. I'm not going to say things are all settled between your parents and myself. I won't tell you I don't hate them at all anymore for what they helped to happen. But we aren't yelling or fighting anymore. And we know who made this all happen. And I know what's happened since I've been gone."

I was a little slow, but not entirely. And you know, it wasn't that much weirder than my former aunt. "I remember you from when I was very little," I said. "You were… I don't know how else to say this, Sirius. You were a good dog."

Ginny cleared her throat and I felt her hand on my shoulder. Sirius bowed his head slightly, as if he were reading my shirt.

"I looked in on you before I left the grounds the other day," he said. "Grown up, and powerful. The blanket was swirling around in the air over you as you slept. Lily said that had taken some getting used to, but it just meant you were dreaming."

"Merlin," Hermione said.

"I have no use for Merlin," Sirius said. "It's not as if _he_ came to me in the prison offering succor. Nobody came." He paused. When his lip curled slightly it was like watching a giant iceberg chip off of a glacier, which I couldn't ever recall seeing, but there it was. "Only one thought, of one person, stayed with me. One person who mattered, who wasn't bloody useless, who didn't betray me, who deserved."

Yes, that's another period. His sentence stopped that abruptly, and his face was again utterly still. After some invisible subterranean process he spoke again.

"Who deserved justice, who needed to be all right, so that then I."

I'd never heard anything like it.

"Then I would be all right."

He was silent.

Then it was as if the wind were blowing through him, a listless scarecrow, filling his paper lungs for one hoarse, rasping word.

"Harry."

"But why…" I dreaded this. "Why didn't you just hate me too?"

"What am I, Snape?" he said.

•

A/N: This chapter has to stop here. I have another few little arcs in the air, I know, like for instance what's going on between D and Ginny right now, and what's going on with Dumbledore, but when I reached the end of Sirius and D's conversation, I realized that I didn't want to follow it with anything. Until the next chapter, anyway. Thanks to Jules for her attention to character and referring to Sirius as "Basil Exposition", to Freja for her good humor and awareness, and to Phil, Jonathan, Chuck, moshpit and the others at Metafic for being interested and gracious and telling me not to change Deasil's voice. You win. Well, I don't think I really could have, but you win anyway.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The next things that happened were the school doctor coming in and kicking my tires and things were ducky for a bit, and then my Dad and Tonks and Lupin came in, and then there was a conversation about what was going on with my magic, and then Dumbledore turned up, and there was a little excitement while we ran around the school, and then a few accidents happened and I had a talk with someone who sounded like me but wasn't, and I had two new reasons to be pissed at the old wizard and lots of questions about what I was supposed to become, and someone got the stupid beaten out of them, and I'm only telling you this now because it's just stressful to have to wait for things to unfold in a story and I want to spare you that worry, so that if I take a little sidetrack or backtrack you'll still know what's coming and not feel like you're being kept in the dark needlessly, like for instance Ginny and I had this talk before all the Hogwarts business and I just went right past it, didn't talk about it at all, but I was thinking about it the whole time leaving the chamber and it was just that I didn't want to keep the whole story from you and figured you'd rather hear about Sirius' time in jail and Trelawney's stupid life story than have me break that up and natter on about some other thing that had nothing to do with either of those things, but that's all done and it's time to natter.

I don't have to breathe. I'm writing.

After movie night with Ginny and Tonks, soon to not become a tradition, and after a lengthy and irritating debriefing by a man named Shacklebolt during which Tonks insisted on interrupting to say we were just witnesses and had nothing to do with anything, I wound up drinking tea in the kitchen with Ginny and wondering if I intended to stay up until negative-four-million-o'clock, B.C., which was the effect tea had on me, and also wondering why it was constantly being offered at all hours and maybe if my family were so weird because of being overly stimulated by caffeine. The house felt very empty now that the cops had gone. It was the same effect as if they'd had mud all over their boots and were eight feet tall and had left marks on the walls and doors from scraping up against them and had left without cleaning up. Though there was no mud and the walls and doors were unmarked. And they were all of average height except Kingsley. But other than that the resemblance was striking.

Tonks had lingered long enough to say that she hoped I appreciated her leaving me out of it. I said I didn't know what difference that made, and she said there were a lot of things I didn't know, and I said for instance I didn't know what her problem was, and she squinted at me in a way that was supposed to communicate ire and her hair turned yellow for a second and I asked if the color indicated she was thoroughly pissed, and then she told me I was a little like Remus and if I thought that were a good thing I would be mistaken, and I said that it was clear that she loved Remus dearly and that I liked her a lot too, and she tried to reply but conflicting things seemed to be competing to come out of her mouth at the same time and her hair was flickering, and she turned a frustrated glance on Ginny before leaving.

"I suppose you're my problem now," Ginny said.

_Oh, good_, I thought at the sweet-shouldered woman as she leaned on the table, _fix me_. They were sweet because they were bare in her sleeveless shirt, and because when I looked at them I imagined them moving, and the miracle that her motion was. Someone had not done this for me, made her for me, drawn her from my wishes freehand and rendered her warm and achingly apparent for me in all my favorite colors. There wasn't anyone there _to_ do it. But if there had been, and I suppose this sort of thing is why some people think there is, they had certainly done a fair amount of research into what I might like in the form of woman, and then beat me over the head with the fat book they wrote about it before dropping me, woozy and verbally incontinent, into her neighborhood.

"How am I a problem to anyone?" I said.

"You manage," she said. Then she asked me if I wanted tea and thus here we were.

"So Death Eaters," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "Bastards." She sipped her tea matter-of-factly, if such a thing is possible. Maybe she was just trying to sip it as though they were bastards. Though how one could do that is beyond me, I mean it's like trying to sneeze as if someone owes you money, but it was kind of working, so I suppose you have to hand it to her.

"They were torturing those people."

"Yeah, until you did whatever you did."

"I didn't do anything," I said. "Things came out like they did."

"But you…" She looked at me, straight and clear, not accusing but knowing. "…you helped all that along."

"I… maybe I did, I'm not entirely certain, but I sure did want things to turn out differently than they might have. That I know."

"And it seems like you have some say in that," she said, and it seemed she was trying to help me along to something.

"It doesn't feel like it," I said. "You make it sound as if I'm this mighty wizard, and all I'm doing is seeing how things might go and what fits in a moment."

"But you don't just _see_ it, it _happens_. The way you want it to."

"No, it doesn't. It happens the way _it_ wants to. I don't feel one way or the other about it when it happens. Or maybe I do, but that doesn't have anything to do with it."

"So what were you feeling when you watched those bastards torturing people?" She was beginning to sound indignant.

"I didn't know they were torturing them at first. I thought they were trying to get them down. Then I figured it out and I started to think about how wrong they were." I resented, in a small way, having to say this out loud, because it really made me feel like an idiot. With any luck she'd see that and not rub my face in it.

"Of course they were wrong to do what they did, master of the obvious – how can you not –"

No such luck.

"Ginny," I said, touching her hand, which had become a fist. I wanted to take her all in, every feature, as I spoke. I hadn't touched her in a while, and it was still a big deal. Remarkable that the strings and pulleys in my dumb clumsy puppet-arm could make it over to her. "What I mean is that they were all wrong there. Like the stone in the theater. They didn't fit in the world."

"Deasil, this is all perfectly clear. I know they don't fit. They're murderers. What is your point?" She spread her fingers out like she was palming a basketball, or squeezing some stupid guy's skull.

Why aren't you listening to me? "You aren't hearing me. I'm trying to explain it. Why can't we just – why don't you just look me in the eye and I'll show you?"

She became still.

"What's wrong with doing that?" I said. "You'll be able to see what I mean."

"I don't…" She looked at her teacup. It was decorated with a small painting of a rose that bloomed and then folded back into a bud in a sort of loop. I wondered if it did that when it was shut up in the china cabinet, and the idea of it sitting there in the dark, just sort of doing that over and over even though no one was looking at it, kind of made me a little sad. What the hell was _my_ problem. Get back on the horse, D.

"I don't think I can do that. With you," she said.

"Uh… I'm not sure it could even be done with anyone else."

"Why don't we just…talk?" She started moving the teacup around in circles. "Why don't you have another go at explaining it to me?"

"Why won't you just read my mind?"

"Unwilling to do a little work, Potter?" she said. You know, she couldn't quite look up while she was saying that.

"I'm always up for work," I said. "But I really want you to understand this."

"Most people actually have to _talk_ to each other."

"Most people don't hear each other without anyone speaking."

"Yes, but that's just – well, it's sort of instant intimacy, isn't it? All you have to do is show up; you don't even have to try. And I'll tell you something – if you think you can just waltz in easy as you please and have your way with – I mean, have things your way, you're sadly mistaken."

"No, not without some work," I said.

"That's right, not without – what?" Ten to me. Her indignant expression, sharp like cinnamon, should have made it fifteen. The shift to tension, however, meant there weren't enough points in the world for me to be ahead. Her voice was stiff as if it were made of blocks strung together. "You presume an awful lot."

"I suppose I do, Ginny. I guess I must have let that one kiss throw me."

Oh. I didn't mention that, did I? I got ahead of myself. It happens. Memory. Like gauze curtains in a strong breeze, in and out of a window, and the window is now, and inside is the past, and outside is the future. Clear enough? I know it isn't. Okay, then. We had not kissed since that first time. I started noticing it … let's see. About five minutes after we stopped. But it didn't get really bad until minute six. At minute ten I merely thought I was going to have to bury myself like one of those desert frogs who live without water for years at a time – I just couldn't imagine life being any kind of decent without more kissing. Maybe I'd bury myself with only my lips showing, so if she happened by she would not need to have also brought a shovel. But she had been very red, and she'd gone for a kind of wink that she'd missed by a mile and sort of snuck out the door, except with me watching her. It was one of those moments that made breathing seem uncomfortable. I'd just made some comment about how I'd like to know where I learned to kiss, and I'd wondered if it were something I said. With her out of the room I felt like there was too much air in there. It was the story of my short life. Only enough of something to know I had been missing it all along. Hey, loser, like chocolate? It's been here your whole life, and it's free, but we're all out of it.

"It wasn't just one," she said, standing, "and it wasn't a guarantee of more, and it would take more than some work for you to have what you want from me."

"What exactly do you think I want from you?"

That was the right question, apparently, because it pointed the bulk of her ire away from me, transformed it into a big fluffy pillow and allowed her to beat herself over the head with it but not do her any harm. You can tell when someone's doing that because their eyes squeeze mostly closed, their heads shake back and forth and their mouths open up some and then close and then reopen. A lot. She looked like she wanted to say the word "you," but every time it started percolating, something made it dissolve.

After a while it finally took form. "_You_ know what you want!" It was a flimsy form at that.

"And what is that?"

This woman, who could have hit me in the eye or given me a wooden leg, and I know how that sounds but if you'll remember, that's something she actually could do, actually looked a little scared. I began to regret this conversation. No matter what I thought it might resolve, I didn't want her to suffer. Some sensitive part of her was being prodded, and I knew what it was like to get that and not want to answer. But she looked as if she were going to try it, though on the extreme end of tentatively.

"You want…to kiss me?"

"Yes, that's one thing," I said.

What I hadn't expected was relief.

She thought I wasn't going to agree with that?

Huh.

"I also want us to know each other," I said.

"I think I can pick you out of a crowd by now," she said.

"You know what I mean. And I know that it's going to take work. You're kind of weird."

"Ah… heh… I'm kind of weird, am I."

"Yeah. You like me, as long as I'm a little far away from you. You've taught me more than anyone about all of this magic stuff, taught me how to fly a broom, helped me learn to count your crazy money, and you kissed me, I mean we kissed. And that was… something. It was unbelievable. Even if I had ever done anything remotely like it, it still would have been nothing like that."

She thought of saying something, but didn't, though briefly her forehead looked like it had knuckles.

"But then you ducked out," I said. "You ran away, and I didn't – I don't – I hated that."

Sympathy and regret smoked, but it was crankiness that caught fire. "I didn't run away!"

"I heard your steps," I said. Soft though they were, little pats on the stone floor, recalling her slender frame - I had heard them recede into nothing, far too quickly. Not a bad sound, but a wistful sound, because I knew what made it, and it was light and sparse and precious, the last drops of water from an empty glass.

"My mother, who I had just met, was lying in a bed down the hall – I was beside myself," she said.

"You _were_ beside _me_."

"I was in a … a very vulnerable state."

"You were in an open state, and so was I. _Wait_ a _minute_ - "

She knew things were going further south but she was in it all the way, I guess. She said, "You should have known that's how things were."

"You're… wait a minute, you're … you're saying that I took advantage of you." I couldn't believe it.

"Well… in a manner of speaking – "

"Helpless." I said. "You're telling me you were helpless and weak and vulnerable and that I took advantage of you."

She didn't like those words one bit. But she wasn't as fast a talker as me that day.

I said, "You were like a helpless, foolish little girl who didn't know her own mind and was thrown by seductive talk from an irresistible man with bad intentions, is that it?"

"Oi! I'm_ not_ a foolish little –"

"And I'm not irresistible and I don't have bad intentions. We've had this conversation before. I'm _not_ that _guy_. What are you _doing_?"

"And I know my own mind," she said, her voice rising in volume.

"If you did you wouldn't lie to me like that."

"I never said I wouldn't lie to you!"

"But do you want to?"

"No! Yes! Bollocks, I'm still doing it!"

"Doing what?"

She gathered herself. "Telling you the bloody truth!"

"No, you aren't," I said. "Not on purpose."

"I – I never said I wouldn't lie to you," she said again, this time with less surety behind it.

"This is all why you don't want to kiss me anymore. You couldn't do that _and_ lie."

"That's not – I don't – " She shook her head. Her hair moved like a melody played by Indian violins. Which of course I couldn't remember hearing, but I knew them when I saw them, or at least things that moved like they sounded. "I can't bloody talk around you, Deasil. I keep getting into these fights, but then I realize they're with myself, and you're not even breaking a sweat. There's not one solitary thing I can -"

"I think you're wrong about that," I said, trying to quell my own frustration, both at her and that I was getting preoccupied with the movement of her hair in the middle of all this. "I think you have problems when you try _not_ to talk around me. Look, I may be wrong about this because I have been trying not to read you so you're mostly a complete mystery to me except for the parts I'd figured out before and anyway what do I know, but it seems to me that things go better when you're honest with me. I know that sounds completely selfish coming from me and maybe it is because I sure do a lot better when you are, but when you tell me how you feel or… or show me, it seems like… I don't know, I mean, doesn't everything seem kind of… you know, really great? Like, fabulously great? Big, gulping lungfuls of great? Like everything is going to be all right? Or is that just me and I'm making a fool out of myself?"

She had this way of being closer to me than I thought she was. Funny thing – I wasn't sure if she was going to deck me or turn my head into a ham or what. But I'd figured out something in my short waking life. Whatever it was, I wanted to be there to find out.

I must have been thinking that fairly loudly into her eyes. There was even a bit of glowing going on. Oh, well, I thought, maybe she'll knock me unconscious and end my being such a complete and utter –

She chose an entirely different option, the curtain-twisting thunder smooch from volcano paradise island.

Called curtain-twisting, because that's what they all did. Every one of them in the house. Apparently fixing them required magic, because they were quite wound up. Thunder, because my ears were roaring. It certainly felt like something really loud was happening. Volcano paradise island, well, that should be fairly obvious. If the lava doesn't get you and the earthquakes don't tear you to pieces and the ash flow doesn't burn you to a cinder, and the natives don't kill you and roast you on a spit, and you're not eaten by sharks or step on a stingray, then there's no better place to be on earth.

Probably good that Ginny won't be able to read this. She would have hated the word "smooch."

•

When we could breathe again, but still take in each other's breath, we spoke.

"I really do like that," she said.

All of the poets in the world came rushing out of history, breathless with inspiration, and knocked at my door, blushing with endearments and sonnets and praises of great beauty and grace for me to speak.

Unfortunately, I was not in at the moment and said, "My feet feel hot."

I will say that it is special, when your forehead is pressed to someone else's, to know they are smiling because you can feel it in their brows.

"So do mine, you foolish man," she said. She was so right, I was foolish, addled, my eyes were half-open and slow, my nose nudging hers, my awareness of how her mouth moved, how warm she was. How it was good for something to feel absolutely right after this evening. I guess the wrongness really affected me, more than I thought.

"Just… don't go away right now," I said. "Just let us stay right for a moment more."

What I felt on my cheek a moment later turned out to be the warmth of her tears.

"I won't…I'm not," she said. "I'm not."

•

It was a weird quid pro quo. We kiss, she tells me about some horrible thing that happened to her. Lots of thoughts popped into my head. I'm a little in love with misery; I'll show you mine now; as long as you're in there… these were things I imagined she was saying to me by doing this. Probably none of those literally. No, actually all of that was totally wrong. I'd ask you to forget that whole line of thinking, except the idea of forgetting is abhorrent to me. I don't want to forget anything. When I have any control over it, I don't.

Anyway, she pulled away from me, though not too fast, which was good because I didn't therefore die from it. She sat back down at the table, looking at my shoulders and hair, I think, and smiling, and I felt measured, but in the best possible way. I wanted a whole lot more, but I didn't exactly know what more was, so I sat also, bumping arms with her, on her side.

"I'm going to talk more now," she said.

"Okay, I'll try to … I'll be… I'm ready, go ahead."

A sighing laugh. "You don't have to do anything special, just listen." She lowered her head a little, and I could see her profile through a curtain of hair, smiling a little, before it went away and she pulled her hair behind her neck. I tried not to think about that soft skin under her delicate ears and how my nose would get along famously in there, I mean if there were a thing made for noses in the way that hats were made for the head or socks for the feet or a carport for the car or something, then my nose would fit in the place below her ear like it fit in whatever that thing that fit the nose would be. Though why anyone would need a nose cover was beyond me. Bring Lassie home, Deasil. Who's Lassie? Can't you be serious? Maybe it got cold, the nose. Maybe there's too much sun, and you need a … Oh, Ginny's talking now.

"I want to explain something to you," she said, slowly rubbing the table with her finger in a way that made me remember I had change in my pocket, "and I'm not sure what it is. But it seems that when I… when I tell you something, like you said, things get better. So I'm going to have a go at it. Save all questions for the end. There will be a short quiz after." Again, the hint of a smile, but that made me know that this wasn't in any way likely to be funny.

"After the diary was destroyed and we got out of the chamber, my family got weird around me. You know how there's a point beyond which if you don't talk about something, people assume you don't want to or can't, and so they just sort of don't talk about it either?"

Say yes. Let her know you get it. "No…" Nice to know I can always count on myself to say the right thing.

"Well, that's all right, anyway that's what happened. I didn't go blubbering to Lily or James, and my brothers mostly felt like they were late to all of this, and so they tried to be protective in retrospect, which was well intentioned but a bit useless, really. And annoying, after a while. It wasn't that I didn't want to be around them, just that I felt like they had absolutely no idea of what I'd been through and no amount of words would explain it to them. In the end they gave me a lot of room to be myself and come to them, which for them meant that they didn't have to ask me any uncomfortable questions and for me meant that I was mostly alone. The other students at school all knew about it somehow, I guess Dumbledore felt he had to tell them -" That hoary, grizzled idiot. "- and they all treated me like I was a … well, I don't know, but they were all maybe a little scared of me, as if I might start petrifying them at random or something. All of them but Neville and Luna. Even the teachers treated me differently. I'd swear that Flitwick used smaller words when I was around. But none of them was as bad as Snape."

She palmed the tabletop and sighed. "The first day of term on the following year. The _first day_. I had that greasy bat for double Potions first thing. Do you know what he said to me? 'I gather that your first boyfriend was a bit too much for you.' In front of everyone. All my friends and the Slytherins for good measure."

"What did you do?"

"I said, 'I guess he was a bit too much for you too.'"

Like. _Like_ her. A whole lot. Even if I have no idea what she's talking about, sounds like he deserved it.

By the way, I hadn't met him yet. This is what happens when an irresponsible force meets an impressionable object. My whimsy meeting my attention. Stories come out like they do. Anyway.

"I'm sure that went over well," I said.

"It was a lot of detentions, which weren't any fun at all, but that was only a problem for me. The worse thing was, he took a huge number of house points for what he called my 'cheek', and my classmates were very irritated with me."

"House points?"

"You remember that the students at Hogwarts are sorted into four groups when they begin school there?"

"Yeah. Still not clear on why that's a good idea."

"I don't know if it is or not, really," she said. "To my mind it makes the people in a certain house sort of conform unconsciously to a type. What if you're courageous but bookish, and analytically savvy, and loyal to your friends?"

"Then you're Hermione."

She laughed. "Exactly. She got stuck in a house of bold loudmouths who charge in without thinking when she was clearly the type to do research. She felt like an outsider the whole time she was there."

"Oh. She didn't have any friends?"

"She had friends. Ron, and Neville, and Luna in spite of herself, and me, and the twins."

"The twins? Really?"

"They initially thought she was hung up on rules and would never so much as look out of line, but a time came when she was able to help them pull a huge prank without breaking any school rules, and they sort of forged a bond with her after that. Also it didn't pay to antagonize their brother's girlfriend."

"I guess not."

"House points," she said.

"Which are?"

"Every time a person in any house does something that's recognized as outstanding, they get awarded points for their house. Also, if they do something against the rules or bad, points are taken away. At the end of the school year, whichever house has the most points wins the House Cup. So in any event, because Snape had taken so many points from me and by extension my house, everyone in the house was pretty angry with me. It didn't occur to any of them that he might just be a slimy bastard out to get me, so they all decided to blame me for putting our house at the bottom. Even though he regularly took points from my housemates, they were never as many as he took from me."

"I wonder why they didn't see what he was doing," I said.

She looked at me for a moment. "Because they were stupid gits. That's what I went with."

"They were stupid, I agree. They should have stood by you."

"Right. Yeah. Thanks. In any event – I'm talking like you, aren't I? We're just wandering all over…"

"Uh, Gin, if you wouldn't mind getting to the point?" I tried very hard not to smile.

Her mouth stretched in mild derision, directed probably at herself as well as me. "One would think this would suit you," she said.

"It absolutely does," I said.

The red stretched a little wider, and then she went on. "Third year was more of the same from Snape. The year had started out badly enough. We went to the world cup with Neville, and got attacked by Death Eaters. Bastards. I'm going to call them bastards from now on. Is that okay? Good. Then when we got to school, someone had the brilliant idea of holding a tournament, and not a polite one, mind, but full of dragons and angry merpeople and grindylows and that, and one of those bastards disguised himself as a professor and managed to get Neville into the tournament even though he was too young, I think he confunded the goblet, and…"

Okay, I'll admit it. My mind didn't just wander. It rambled. It ranged. It mounted up on a bowlegged camel and dashed far, far away, to a place where things were peaceful and it understood all of the words thrown at it and nothing interfered with its holy meditations on how Ginny's bottom lip moved and how there was a perfectly ivory band of white under her pupils as she looked earnestly at me, telling this completely incomprehensible story. I felt a little bad about it, but honestly, sometimes it was all too much. The strange words, the alien nature of the creatures and plants, and always the underlying magic, so different from the formal magic that people practiced - and different from no magic at all, the simple lives of non-magical folks that, for all of the powerlessness and bending to the will of probability, made me feel a little homesick.

She was charging on ahead. "…so he dumped the egg in the water and all of a sudden the screeching became mermish voices singing and they said that…"

Clearly not safe to come out yet.

Look, I've half a mind to just skip all of her telling the story. It went on and on. I missed a lot of it anyway. Not because I was ignoring her, not by any means. And not to belittle her telling of it. It was just that so much of it was beyond me, and she told her story so matter-of-factly that I understood how all of that was normal to her, and even if I didn't catch it all I still got the important thing, the shape under the water, the underlying feeling of her and the life she lived in and its pace and meaning to her.

What I gathered was that Neville had to compete in this crazy tournament with three other students, two of which were from other schools, and he wasn't really supposed to be in the tournament but somehow he got sucked into it, and Ginny and Ron and Hermione helped him get through it, even though he had to fight a dragon which he somehow subdued with some kind of plant, and he also had to swim in the lake for an hour or something and rescue a friend of his, though he actually tried to rescue some other people too. The whole time this was going on, Snape was ridiculing him every day in class, and making Ginny's life miserable with detentions and insults, and she'd said something about it to my mother, and Mum had gone to Dumbledore and pitched a fit, but Dumbledore had said that he would speak to Snape but he trusted him to be a good teacher and he suggested that maybe Ginny should try to keep her head down a bit in the meantime. My mother had not liked that one bit but clearly this was beyond anything she could prevent because of who Dumbledore was, and Ginny insisted it was something she could handle, so my mother stepped back. Nothing really got any better, and then at the end of the tournament Neville was even with this other guy from school, but the guy did something to help Neville so he kind of let the other guy reach the end first, but the goal was enchanted to be a portkey (I knew what that was, at least) and the other guy vanished as soon as he touched it. His body turned up a few weeks later. So Neville felt really guilty and it kind of changed him, and he started training really hard after that, and Snape latched on to the idea that Ginny had helped Neville and started giving her grief about that every day, and she of course gave back a bit, sometimes arguing with him and sometimes just spiking his food with prank stuff from her brothers. Neville had won by default, so eventually he was presented with a bag of gold that he didn't want, so he gave it to Ginny, and she decided to give it to the twins to start a joke shop. I thought that was very generous of her and said so, and she said that she knew that things were getting tougher all over and everyone needed a good laugh now and then.

"Aren't you going to say anything to all that?" she was saying to me. "I've been talking for a while now and you haven't said a word."

I thought for a moment.

"I like your way," I said.

"My way of what?"

"Telling me things. You know, not the in-the-eye way, the talking way."

"Oh."

"And I…"

"What?"

"I like the…sound of your voice."

Her eyes were soft as she looked up from the table.

"Not just the sound of it," I said, "I mean I like what you're saying and how you see things. I know there's more, and I can't wait to hear it. I really want to hear it. No matter what it is."

Her face was lovely in the light from that glowy thing and she leaned towards me, saying, "All right, then," and bumping my nose with hers.

A moment later when a loud pop occurred behind us, she was half out of her seat with her wand out. Being a little proximity-intoxicated, I kind of swung my head around slowly.

It was only one of the twins. George.

"Bad time to sneak up on someone," she said, as she put her wand down. It made a little extra noise on the table.

"What's up, George?" I said.

He looked a little irritated. "Right – how do you know which one of us is which?"

"You're different people," I said.

That got me a bit of a look. It lasted for a few seconds, until something else occurred to him, and a smile crept up his face.

"Ginny Weasley," he said. "Am I interrupting something?"

She didn't say anything for a moment, so I said, "Well, yeah, as a matter of fact we were just about to–"

"Tea, George," she said. "Would you like. Some tea."

"Oh," he said, "how delightfully formal. I do love a nice cup, you're forced to. Funny how a bit of dried leaf soaked in water can turn any occasion into –"

"_What_ kind. Of tea. Would you like."

"My stars, let me think," George said. "I've always been partial to Earl Grey, but then a little green tea might be good – antioxidants, you know, though I believe there is some blueberry herbal that also has – yes? Hello?" She was advancing on him. I wasn't clear on why he was so effusive about the tea, or why that irritated her – because that's what she was, clearly irritated.

It was a tense stillness. George appeared to be trying to look innocent, but he also appeared to be trying not to look scared as well. Ginny's wand was on him in a way that you wouldn't think of as friendly, even if you liked redheads pointing sticks at you, and you know I wouldn't pass judgment if someone did fancy a bit of that, though I would be unwilling to facilitate it in any way at all, and I'm also in no way implying anything weird about George, I mean anything at all, and if I could ever ask anyone to forget something it would be this whole train of thought.

Abruptly, Molly emerged from a doorway with Arthur behind her, sort of in the manner of a toy train. They were very focused on something else. Arthur was staring at Molly's back. She looked kind of determined, but only kind of. Without looking towards us she said, "George, don't tease your sister." Arthur made a distracted gesture, a wave somewhere among the points of "It's not important", "Cut that out", and "How'd that fly get in here?" They disappeared into another room.

It took a bit of the edge off.

Oh, I thought. He's teasing her. That was something brothers and sisters did, apparently. What he was teasing her about, I had no idea.

George and Ginny had watched the engine and caboose pass through together. I'd been aware of their heads turning in tandem, and they remained trained on the door their parents had gone through.

"Amazing," he said. "Didn't look up, just came in, and the woman knows I did something and calls me on it."

"She's good," Ginny said. George stared after them for a moment, with an expression I couldn't read on his face, maybe because I was used to a whole different set of them on him. It seemed to take him a moment to collect himself. But he was resilient, if nothing else.

"Well, must be off," he said. "I would hate to break up a _mood_."

George grinned in a slightly manic way at me before disapparating in a puff of brown and yellow smoke. I hadn't seen that one before.

I discovered why George had grinned at me when my eyes started to water from what had to be the worst thing I have ever smelled. Like some creature that only ate rotten eggs crawled into someone's colon to die. I mean it was enough to chase her beauty from the front of my mind to contemplate knocking myself out so I wouldn't smell it anymore. Ginny looked both disgusted and furious.

"It's one of George's new ones," Ginny said. "For the shop."

"He does that and then sells it?" I said.

She laughed a little. It was sunlight on water. Which I might actually have seen. Oh, great, more weird, only less. "No. It's a prank you can buy. It used to be that you would use a dung bomb, that's a little blob of really horrible stuff that bursts with impact and makes this really horrid stench, but you could always see the thing because it made smoke. So the twins invented a variant that has no residue and no color unless you want it to, so it would be easier to make someone think that their friend had made a raspberry." She observed my expression. "If that were your goal, I mean, if there were a need to, you know… bollocks. Explaining raspberry pranks. Ginny's getting cuter by the second, isn't she?"

Yes. "Nope." Really, yes. "Yes."

Ron chose this moment to burst in to the room but was stopped in his tracks by the stench, which did sort of hit you like a sturgeon, which is not a common turn of phrase, I realize, so clarity demands an indication that I mean a large stiff fish swung at you with some force.

"Whew! Who sent the howler?" he said.

"Wasn't me," I said.

A little later I said, "Or her. Of course."

Ron gave me a look and was about to say something else that might have been educational, but stopped immediately.

"Of course," he said.

"It was one of George's," Ginny said.

"Came all this way to spread the warmth?" Ron said.

"Would have been a lot worse if it had been warm," I said.

"Keep it to yourself," she said, "or they'll make that a feature."

•

Okay, we've gone far afield. But it all did happen, just not in that order. Though after we cleared the air and Ron left wondering aloud about what happened to all the bloody curtains, I told Ginny that the Death Eater guys I saw, and I hate using the term because it's so stupid, but anyway those guys were unlike anything I'd ever seen before and though I knew what they were after a little bit, I couldn't stop thinking about how wrong they were, and that it was different for me because I'd had a clean slate and not grown up around them, and she accepted that. Then she thanked me for being a stubborn git, kissed my cheek in a way that made my feet feel hot again, and went up to her room. Nothing else happened that night, and I won't be revisiting it. So you know.

But anyway, we were up in the school's medical center place, though I'm sure they had a better name for it, and a stretchy woman had just come in and started running the list of plosive consonants that she favored. And when I say stretchy I mean that she looked like someone had pulled hard on her hair and stretched her face back tightly against her skull, giving her a somewhat tense expression, and then anchored it with a silly white hat with flaps on it. And while we're at it, when I say running the list of plosive consonants, I mean she was saying "Puh…kuh…tuh…buh…" and so on. Look it up - I did, later. She seemed to be mostly oriented on Sirius.

Eventually he said, "Hello, Poppy."

This stopped her.

Hermione said, "He was innocent all along, Madame Pomfrey. He's been released."

"Well, I can see that," she said. She took a moment to make a decision, then stepped forward and said in a steadier voice, "And of course he was innocent. Well, let's have a look at you, then. You'll be wanting some restorative potions and –"

"We're not here for me," he said. "We're here for James' son."

She took me in like you take a glass of water thrown in your face for no reason. "I thought…didn't he…"

"Nobody's ever glad to see me," I said.

"Poor dear," Ginny said. "Bit of a party-crasher, aren't you?"

"And why are you here then?" the doctor said to me.

"He apparated half into a wall," Ron said.

"That cannot be so," the doctor said. "He would not have survived that."

"Well, I had been feeling a bit run-down," I said. "Maybe it was just a little spot of death, all along."

She hmmph'd as she approached me with her wand. "Where on earth did you learn to apparate?"

"I didn't."

"Who brought you along then? Sirius?"

"He didn't do anything, except help rescue me. I did it myself."

"Was it accidental magic, then?"

"No, I meant it," I said. "Sometime it happens when I need to get away from something, but I can make it happen when I want to. I was having a massive headache and I just let it happen, I guess."

"D- Harry has known nothing about magic for most of his life. Be silent, D," Ginny said to me with the tiniest gleam in her eye. "He came back to us some weeks ago and has been rendering his own kind of magic since then. No wand, no incantations, just making things happen. A bit of dissociative response, leading to subconsciously-driven manifestations of magic."

Oh, yeah. She studied this. I'd forgotten that she had taken a leave from the university or whatever it was. You know how you see something new in someone and it just adds to the whole picture, reminds you that there's more depth to this person than you're commonly aware of, and you think it's just the best thing ever and she's the best thing ever and you hope that you have something to offer in spite of your being functionally a month old and having a candle-flame of an attention span?

Maybe you don't.

"So unless I'm mistaken," the doctor said, "you're telling me that this boy is practicing potentially dangerous magic without any training or knowledge and thus endangering his life and maybe the lives of others?"

Hey, uh, wait, is the gist of what I thought.

"Well, then, there must be no doubt at all that he's a Potter. Recklessness runs in that family."

I peripherally noticed Ron closing his eyes and shaking his head slightly.

"You know…" I said.

"Oh, I think I do know," she said. "Your father had the same lack of sense when it came to himself."

"That isn't…"

"He was in here every other day, it seemed. Crashing into something, blowing something up, or dragging one of his friends in here because of some foolish stunt he'd pulled. It was bad enough that he put himself in danger, but taking other people with him…" She had collected some little bottles of something and was now poking her wand at me, and even though it hadn't touched me it felt spiky and invasive. "Completely thoughtless."

"What is it with people slamming my family today?" I said.

"And one would think," she said as she waved her wand a little too near my face, "that Lily would have taught him something, but she was too doe-eyed over him to do it. Not a word of remonstrance, no, just calm as you please, oh, he'll be fine, he meant no harm, _honestly_-"

"This is going a little too far. I don't even know you." That wand work was really starting to irk me.

"I know everything I need to know about you – otherwise you wouldn't be here, fresh from some foolishness that you had no business being caught up in."

"You don't know where I've been," I said. "You don't have any idea what happened to me."

"Maybe if you would learn to keep out of –"

"Lady," I said, "you need to shut _up_ now. And stop waving that thing at me!"

And shut up she did. Although she was still making a mistake, in that she was fixing her mouth to let me have it. I could tell. She was getting ready to rain it down on my head, because it was her sacred right to put me in my place.

So I said, "Not another word or I'll bill you."

She paused, gathering herself at that statement, and then said "Of all."

That's as far as it went. The rest were quacks. The intent was still there, I mean you could hardly mistake her tone, but it was all duck talk at the moment.

Ron looked like I'd just bought him a Quidditch team.

"D, that – that's just not right," Ginny said. She wasn't laughing, but only just.

"Why doesn't anybody else get told that?" I said. Pomfrey was pointing her wand at herself and squawking frantically. I made a mental note to tell Remus that his method of magic sucked. Mine was inexact and quirky and unreliable, but lots of it was funny.

"You need to listen to me," I said to her. "This garbage about my father causing you trouble has got to stop. What on earth are you doing here if injuries are such a personal affront to you – like these people should be stunting their lives so you can have longer tea breaks? And what the hell gives you the right to take shots at injured people anyway? Would you do that if I had just met you in the hall? Honestly, this school seems like a nightmare. I just met one teacher who takes his own inner drama out on the students, and now a doctor who thinks she gets to punish patients for needing her help. How long has this been going on? Why don't you try to smack around healthy people and see how you like that?"

She wasn't quacking anymore. The bill was stilled. I had her attention. That was all I wanted. It was really something watching that utterly alien feature get drawn back into her skin until her face was normal.

"I… I am unaccustomed to having a patient transfigure me in my infirmary, and without a wand, and lecture me on how I treat the people in my care. Nevertheless," she said, perhaps sensing the imminent likelihood of growing other animal bits if she didn't change course, "I have clearly offended you with the manner in which I have spoken. You are asking me to look inward in a place where I … but you are very like James was. And it is equally … difficult to see you in trouble. It reminds me of the many, _many_ times I treated him in this infirmary. Broken limbs, contusions, singed flesh, missing eyebrows, scratches, dog bites, head injuries…let us say he kept me busy for seven years, and I knew him very well at the end. If I am… harsh concerning him …"

"It's… you just… what you mean is… okay, I've got nothing."

Ginny smothered a laugh with a fake cough. It lasted a little too long. Basically it only served to draw attention to her for its volume, duration and utter falseness. I mean the heads turning was a thing to behold – it was like something I could kind of remember where a whole lot of the same things turned at the same time. The quality of my internal metaphors was not great, and I was wondering if they would ever get better.

"What she means is, she hates to see such a fine specimen of manhood injured in any way. Really, it hurts the soul. Hello, Poppy," my father said, entering the room with Remus and Tonks. A few quick steps and he was kissing her cheek and making her blush.

"The real reason I was in here all of the time," he began, only to be shushed by the doctor.

"Nothing changes, even after all of this time. He's supposed to be grown up and married," she said.

"Well, Poppy, you know how it is, you never forget your first."

He got a smack for that, but not a hard one.

"Your son was just telling me how wrong I was to ever speak ill of you," she said, coming back over to me.

"I can see how mistaken I was," I said.

"Hmm," she said as she began to wave her wand at me again.

"And for what it's worth, I'm very sorry about the duck thing."

"What duck thing?" my father said.

"Harry was trying to get me to stop complaining about you, and he wandlessly – well, he transfigured me a bit."

"Deasil, she means no harm," he said. "She's taken care of me for many years. And, you might consider not transfiguring people against their will. They will generally find it unpleasant."

"Severus did," I said, and there were immediately a group of suppressed snickers from my friends.

"What's Snape doing here?" Sirius said.

"Bullying students and hating my parents," I said.

"Well," my father said, "you might consider not transfiguring _most_ people."

"He's a professor here," Sirius said, taking that in. "What in hell is wrong with the old man…"

"Harry," Poppy said, "when did you say you started showing your magic?"

"Well," I said, "I think I may have done some when I was younger, but I don't remember. It's a long story, but the short form is I haven't been allowed to remember anything from day to day for most of my life, since I was a small child, so I couldn't say when I did anything at all, or if I did."

Her face was, if possible, even more tight. I imagined someone had given her hat a few turns while I wasn't looking. "You appear to have a somewhat tumescent magical core. Perhaps it's due to your not using magic even through your maturation at seventeen."

"I matured at seventeen?" I said.

"All wizards and witches do."

"Who picked that?"

"What?" Thank goodness, some points. I was getting low.

"I mean, no matter who you are and if you're short or tall or whatever, on your seventeenth birthday the lights come on in the house?"

"I don't make the rules, Harry."

This was a sensible answer. "Okay, so what does that imply?"

"You've got a bit of a surplus of magic," she said. "It's hard to tell if it's temporary, or if your capacity for magic has expanded…I'd like to run some more tests…"

"Uh, can you just tell me if being one with a wall has done me any harm?"

"No, for one reason or another," she said, "you appear to have escaped injury."

"Try not to sound disappointed," I said. "I'll try to strain something later if you like."

"You are clearly his son," she said. "And he was always one of my favorites."

Then after a pause, she leaned forward and said in my ear, "Cheeky bugger."

I don't think anyone else heard her. That was all right. And when she straightened up, it appeared that someone had given her hat a few twists in the opposite direction. She was all right with me.

The fire flared in the fireplace, and Minerva's head appeared in it. "Deasil, are you there?"

"Yes," I said.

"I have just spoken with the headmaster," she said.

"Where are you?" Hermione said, her voice tense.

"In his office. He came in, asking if I had seen you, and I'm afraid that I told him you were likely in the medical wing."

"Did he seem weirder than usual?" I said.

"That's what I am trying to tell you. When he left the room, for a moment I noticed his eyes turning red. I fear…"

"That is really, really not good. Is that ever good? The red eye thing?"

"No, it is not," she replied. "I am going to attempt to clear the school of students, but you may need to take steps."

"Lots of them," I said.

"Thank you, Minerva," my father said. "We'll find our way out." Her head disappeared from the flames.

"Right," he said, turning to Sirius. "Humpbacked witch."

"Safe as I recall it," Sirius said. "Everyone follow us."

We all scrambled to the door and made our way out. I was wondering why my father was calling Minerva names and why Sirius thought it was safe to do so. We were passing the slowly spinning stairs going downward, and this also seemed inexplicable to me – I wanted out of there – and I wound up lagging behind a little, at which point I happened to look up a few levels and saw him leaning over the balustrade, looking down at me.

What I was not prepared for was how red his eyes actually were. Even from this distance, they were glowing and as expressionless as a cigarette lighter. There was only one thing that could have made it any creepier, and that would have been him seeing me, smiling, and laughing before pulling his head from view.

"Uhh – he's coming downstairs," I said.

The hallways around and below us were filling with students.

Through the crowd I could see my father and Sirius herding the others and some students into a passageway behind a statue. I knew I had to follow them quickly if I wanted to get out.

I knew this. But at the top of the next landing, I saw a familiar face. The girl who I'd seen before, threatened by the group of boys that wound up wiping themselves out. She was frozen in fear. The current of students roiled around her, but she was still, clutching a bag to herself.

Well, this should only take a second, right?

I went up the stairs two at a time for the first four stairs, then came to the realization that I was still pretty beat from the apparating and all that, and in a much less swashbuckling style I continued up, edging through the kids until I reached her. She didn't acknowledge my presence until I put a hand on her shoulder.

"Time to go," I said.

"You – you," she said.

"Me," I said. "I'm the guy helping you today. Listen. One foot in front of the other, down the stairs, outside, go be safe. Okay?"

"Okay," she said.

She didn't move.

"I, uh, I hate to rush things," I said, "but there's a crazy guy coming down the steps and he's likely to, uh, you know, do something crazy, and we don't want to be here when that, uh, you know."

Nothing. People all around us, feet squeaks, crowd babble, shoulders, books. She was as still as the statue of the humpbacked witch downstairs. Oh. That explains that.

All right. Time to cut through the fog. "You." I pointed. "Run." I made perhaps the most idiotic arm gestures possible to indicate running. "Now." I had no pantomime for that. "Your boyfriend needs you outside."

Well, it worked. She gasped, then darted down the stairs after everyone else. I was shaking my head at the girl, only kind of aware of a staircase from above swinging towards me. When I turned to look at it, I saw Dumbledore standing calmly at the top of it, smiling at me.

Okay, then, time for me to go.

Except the stairs leading down had already swung away from me.

_Who designed this nuthouse?_

I turned and ran.

It's funny how when you do something by mistake, like making a wrong turn, down a hallway that had nothing to indicate it was the right way to go, like anyone else going down it for instance, but instead had other indications like the sound of their footsteps going the other way, that you don't stop doing that thing right away. A part of your mind keeps you doing the thing, hoping that something will pop up and show you it was the right thing to do in the first place, and maybe those other people had actually been the ones who goofed, and so you keep on, say, running, though not with the same vigor or spirit that you'd had before, but that part of you that wants it not to have been a mistake is saying, "Come on, now, keep it lively, you're doing well," and as things continue to be indicated to the contrary it says "now, you've got to have a good attitude about these things, or it'll never work out," and then when you realize you're all the way down the hall and it's quiet except for the approach of a crazy guy with a wand who wants to burn you to a cinder, the voice is saying stuff like, "this is all because you don't think positively enough, well, you want it to be the wrong way, it's the wrong way – happy now?"

Maybe it's not like that for most people, but it is for me. I was running out of corridor, and running out of places to run. I found a door, a plain wooden door, and went through it. There was a lock on the inside, which I put to use, and then I had a glance around the room I was in to see if there was a rock I could hide under. Not really thinking clearly at all. Not trying to disappear or blend in with the plain stone walls or hide behind the eight-foot mirror standing off to one side. My thoughtfulness had simply deserted me. I needed something to snap me out of this, and I had no idea what that would be.

What did it was the smell of burning wood and a horrible pain in my forehead.

The door I had come through had smoke rising from it, and cracks were appearing in the panels. The iron latch I'd fastened was beginning to glow white.

This meant someone wanted in.

With a noise something like an abrupt asthmatic cough, the door suddenly stopped being a door anymore.

Through the doorway came my grinning pursuer. Not hurried at all. Just parting the smoke like he owned it, like it was his pet. He stopped a few steps inside, and issued a soft laugh.

"Why is it that I'm never happy when you are?" I said.

"It takes different things to amuse us."

"Seems like everything's making you smile these days."

"Ah, but as I have said before," he said, "whenever I smile, the back of my head frowns."

He was all wrong.

And what's more, it didn't feel like him. He was hiding something.

Well, here I was. Being handed a giant shite sandwich. Time to take a bite.

"You've been hiding it long enough," I said. "I want to see who I'm really talking to."

"Yes," he said. He pulled his hat off in a ragged motion and it fell to his side on the floor. A kind of liquidity came over the false image of his head, and then he bowed, now bald, and slowly revealing, like a horrid sunrise, the swelling form of a second face on his head, this one incomplete, stretching his skin from beneath until it whitened. No nose to speak of, a lipless mouth, and eyes of the same red that his front pair assumed when the other, whoever it was, dominated.

"Your name is … Harry."

I couldn't tell how it was able to speak. Where did the air come from to push out this muffled, congested-sounding voice, what muscles drove the lips into motion? I watched Dumbledore's head bob as if retching, forcing the sound out of this sluggishly-animated mask. It was truly ugly magic.

"At some point," I said. "Who are you?"

"We have … met before," the mask said, pumping words out laboriously. "When you were … a baby."

It was really, really nasty magic. It made the word "baby" sound obscene, which was some trick.

"You … cast me … out of my … body."

Tom.

I said, "And you replaced the old one with – this old one?" Not exactly a step up to me.

"He was my… teacher, he… thought he would… save me. He was… always a… fool."

He thought he could handle this thing? I'd heard Dumbledore had a lot of middle names, and I assumed one of them was "Hubris."

"So you're riding him." I thought for a minute. There was something I wanted to know, and at that moment it seemed more important than any other question I could think of.

"Does it get sweaty under the hat?"

I didn't say it _was_ important.

"This is surprisingly simple," the mask said. It sank below the horizon of his skull as he raised his head and stared, red eyes brighter than they were before.

Dumbledore advanced on me, his hands swinging unused at his sides, the palms facing backwards. For some reason that made me aware of how scared and disgusted and unnerved I was. It gave the impression of him being a marionette more than anything. I felt severely unprepared for any of this, and took a few steps backward as he approached. How did I end up alone? Why did we split up? There was something here that I needed, but I hadn't found it. Hadn't quite located it. Still backing up, hearing the scrape of my own feet on the stone, looking around, the room was empty except for the mirror, but I didn't need that, all I needed was some .. little … oh boy, he's right close now, what am I supposed to –

And I lost my balance and fell over backwards.

He had come up to my feet and stopped. One of my heels was resting on a bit of raised stone.

That was what I was looking for.

He was still. Not looking at me anymore, but into the mirror.

"I see…I…" he said. "I see socks."

Oh. Well, then.

"I see…fire," he said. "I see the end of … I see…that is not my vision. That is not what I see!" This last was a bellow. His face contorted, veins visible in his neck, an old man's neck, and his hands came up clenched, and then grasped his head. "I see you now – and you are not me! _Expectoro!"_

His head shook so hard that his slack skin flapped audibly. A black mist seemed to rise from him, like oil smoking in a pan. As his eyes rolled up in his head, the mist rose up and disconnected itself from him with a hissing sound - then, moving like a swarm of bees, it descended, before I could think to do anything, and surrounded my head. A moment of the most intense claustrophobia, a gagging sensation in my throat, my scar burned fiercely, and the next thing I knew, the room _was empty._

_No mirror, no tragic/comic Dumbledore. No noise from the corridor. No temperature. Nothing. _

_Nothing but a viscous, oily black substance covering me entirely. I struggled to see through it, but all I could really see were giant floaters that lazily connected over my field of vision, drawn together by surface tension. In the middle of the cold I felt, somewhere, a voice, my voice._

"_You're a curious one," the voice said. A different me? I didn't think so. It was hard to be sure._

_No. "You're the one made out of smoke," I said._

"_This… this is what fate has sent to conquer me," he said. "You're an infant. No one's bothered so much as to clean the afterbirth off of you. There's nothing __to__ you. There's nothing to know at all. Friend to house elves, a wizard of autism, a sword with no edge."_

_A hissing in the silence, then he said, "A world with you as a weapon does not deserve to continue."_

_Tom was a bit of an ass._

"_Seems like I'm enough to put an end to you," I said. Which sounded stranger than one might expect, because I increasingly felt like I was talking to myself. _

"_Why would that be? Because of the ramblings of a charlatan, a cheap tin seer? Do you expect that I would defer my existence to the will of that three-knut fortune-teller?" _

"_Because you don't belong here," I said. "Not like I want to or know how to, but here I am."_

"_Nor shall I bend myself to your will, newborn."_

"_Bend… or break, we all have a choice," I said._

"_Bravado," he said, "from someone so freshly dropped at the world's doorstep. You know nothing of conflict, and nothing of my power."_

"_Probably," I said. How was that bravado?_

"_A war will change you."_

"_That seems fairly obvious. Sounds to me like you think that will help you."_

"_You will do things that hurt you more than they hurt your worst enemy. You will become the thing your family has fought to destroy all of these years."_

"_Why would I do that?"_

"_Because: in order for you to save the ones you love, you will have to become like me. You will have to murder me. And you will have to murder all of my Death Eaters, because any one of them that's left will surely try to kill you or your family."_

"_You're telling me… to kill your followers?"_

"_I'm telling you who you will become. It is inevitable."_

"_Yeah, but…how do you know? How are you an expert on what happens to anybody?"_

_A sound that was not a sound, a sigh like light reflecting off of a blade._

"_You come to me already mortally wounded, newborn."_

"_You sound like you've been hit in the head a few times yourself."_

"_You have no understanding of what I am and no way of –"_

"_You're right," I said. " I don't understand you. But I do have a way."_

_The room turned inward upon itself, and I went for the source of the voice, something that had been around me but in this inverting space was now within me - what had been like an oily coating around me, a polychrome slick, was now its inverse, a glistening form, a black lump like a brain mass, hints of horrid color glimmering from its irregular surface, and I knew that this was my target, and I reached for it and held it and plumbed it, expecting great depths but not ever, ever this much darkness._

_Boy. Mother insane, dead. Father gone. Finding power in himself, more than he could begin to understand. His unformed will shaping things. Finding fear in himself, masking it with fear from others, holding his fear underwater until it drowned, clutching his arms, taking something of him with it, or was that the girl who laughed at him? Or was it with him? But what good was she if she could die? Her limp fingers useless, her hair pointlessly lovely in the water. The power the overwhelming thing, now that she was gone – he had done this, he controlled her, it. And the rarest of moments in his life – a twisted empathy. If this could be done to her, could it also be done to him? No, he refuses it. He will command it and he will visit it upon the weak, revealing their flaws. He finds ways, as he grows and it grows, to hide himself away in many places. People become things. Those who run from him have no hope. Those who embrace him are doomed without knowing it. He will stack up their bodies and build a castle strong enough to resist all attacks, to feed the enemy and leave himself untouched. When all fires are finally extinguished, and all corpses are ash, he will remain, and death will die._

_The space we were in spasmed, inverted, and I was surrounded once again by the cloying black film of his will. A revulsion I could not begin to escape. _

"_Well, I've really had about enough of this," I said. "Get off me."_

"_I have possessed you. I'm joined with you now – we are the same. You cannot throw me out."_

_Great. _

_I was trying to remember what Dumbledore had said in the chamber, something about seeing the difference of something so he could be free, and just now he'd seen one thing in the mirror instead of himself, and then something else, and maybe because I felt like I was talking to myself that something was especially important about this, I felt like I had to figure out how to get this other me away, but my mind was racing, and I couldn't make myself focus on the problem._

_I was thinking of a hot dog stand._

_Not the whole thing, just one part. Just a small part of it. The place where the relish was. On an aluminum tray, with a mostly-clear plastic lid, that had a white plastic spoon sticking out of it. I'd passed the stand, must have passed it often, and over time a question had built up and remained like a mineral stain on a faucet, because I'd asked it so often of myself, the same time every day, __so that I could remember it__. Was that the same spoon forever? Did he clean it or just let it sit there day after day? Then one day there was someone there, getting a hot dog, and after he slathered relish all over the hot dog, the vendor took it from him and dropped it in a hidden trash compartment, replacing it with a new spoon. I had no idea why I remembered it, why I passed the thing, where I was going, what brought it to my mind. And this, to me, was very familiar. And as far as I knew, a very singular experience._

_The difference between him and me, in this case, was very simple._

"_I may not know who I am," I said, "but I know it isn't you." _

_A schism, a crack from the core to the stars, and one last thought from that oily presence – "Not yet." Then Tom was gone._

The universe vomited me on the floor. The scar on my head burned. I felt like I never wanted to be in a small space ever again. Like even a tight sweater would be too much. Like a hug would be too much. Like a handshake would. Like a wave from across the room.

I shivered a little and tried to look around. The room was fuller than when I left it. In front of me was that big idiot Dumbledore, Mister Problem-Solver, looking at me like I might do something weird. I thought that was a little rich. And somehow, naturally, he'd taken the time to put on a hat. Surrounding him, with lots of pointed wands, were my family.

My family. Who would probably hate me later, if Tom was right.

Dad, Sirius, Remus, Tonks, Ron and Hermione. And Ginny, looking furious and scared. If I had been Dumbledore, I'd have been just a bit worried about my own personal safety.

But I wasn't the bastard here. "It's actually him now," I said. "Tom was in there with him, but he left." The thought alone was enough to raise bile.

The wands all slowly, as if in a ballet, shifted over to me.

"He left me as well," I said, my throat thick with memory. "Didn't anybody see some black smoky stuff a second ago?"

"That's what that was?" Ron said. The wands lowered. Ginny looked torn, as if she wanted both to come to me and to run away as fast as she could. I couldn't blame her at all.

"I'm assuming that's what it was," I said. "What the hell do I know about anything? You people live here, in this... Don't any of you know what's going on?" It came out a little fast, because I hated talking, because I didn't trust that what would come out of my mouth was actually all me talking. This happens when you've heard your own voice in your head saying things you aren't thinking.

"That's what it was," my father said.

"Merlin, the students," Hermione said.

"I believe Tom would not try the same failed trick four times," Dumbledore said, with a glance at Ginny.

"Three times," I said.

"Pardon?"

"The second one _worked_ on _you_, jackass."

Ginny released her breath but said nothing.

"Deasil," my father said, coming to me. His countenance warm, filled with concern, he held my hand and passed his wand over me. I registered Hermione and Ron dashing from the room, but I was busy noticing that a hand on my shoulder was in fact all right with me. I figured he was going to reprimand me for being disrespectful, but instead he said, "Can you tell me what happened?"

I really, really liked him.

"I can tell you what I saw, but most of it was way over my head," I said. That would be a bit of a theme with me. "Dumbledore came in after me, he had a face on the back of his head, we talked a little and I figured out it was Tom–" Gasps for everyone. A round for the lot. I was buying. "-and then he came at me, and I fell down and he saw himself in the mirror and started talking about a sock and then fire and the end of something, and then he started yelling at himself, and then a black cloud thing came out of him and got all over me, and then Tom and I talked and he tried to take me over but I thought about a spoon, and he left and here we are."

"Oh," he said.

"I saw my heart's desire in the mirror," Dumbledore said, "and then I saw another vision, a vision most…terrible, and I knew it wasn't mine, and thus I was able to draw a line between us and cast him out from me." He looked down at me and this really annoying little smile started at his mouth. A moment later, his eyes started to crinkle up and he said, "I knew that you would understand what I said in the Chamber, and you have proven-"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," I said. "Or smiling about. If you knew how to fix this you should have told me how to, not given me a stupid riddle. Or you should have told somebody else a long time ago. What's wrong with you?"

That stupid look melted.

Sirius made a small sound, not a laugh, but when I glanced at him I liked his sideburns.

"It was luck that got you out of this one, old wizard," he said to Dumbledore.

"What is he doing here?" the old man said.

"He's a free man, Albus," my father said. "He was wrongly –"

"This can not be allowed," Dumbledore said. I noticed at this moment that Sirius had no wand. Surely it would have been out by now. "This information is too sensitive-"

My father shouted, "He has a right to know this as much as –"

"He is unstable and unpredictable, as always, and from a Dark-"

"You're wrong about him," Tonks said, "you haven't been here! You don't know what has happened!"

Dumbledore was shaking his head slightly, and in a similar way to that other stupid expression, another expression was congealing on his face. A regretful look.

This wasn't good to me. Not that much of anything was. I began to get to my feet.

"It is for the best that he should forget all of this," Dumbledore said, drawing a wand from his sleeve to begin to point it at Sirius. "You will understand in time."

The next sound was his wand clattering to the floor. It rolled to a stop at Sirius' feet.

Dumbledore closed his eyes, frowning faintly. "This is foolish. It is for the best, and I do not require a wand for this." He opened his eyes again and focused on Sirius. _"Obliv-"_

The word didn't finish as it was interrupted by a loud slapping sound. A red mark appeared on Dumbledore's face, followed by his expression of surprise.

Then a thudding blow sounded, and he doubled over, his arms and body concave around a deep impression in his middle. Another, and he straightened up, his mouth slack, uncomprehending, and then another thump, and another, his body buffeted about by something invisible like a loose sail in the wind, his robes flaring and caving in, the tempo rising, small bits of words making it to his lips before being slapped away, a shoulder bent, an arm flailing, spittle flying, snapping cloth, dry thuds and his breath being expelled by force, and finally a shattering silence.

Evidently the blows were the only thing keeping him standing, so without ado he dropped like a bag of hammers to the floor.

It was very still in the room. I found it significant that no one present came to his aid.

I made my way over to him, and bent down by his head. My hands shook a little, and my scar was still burning, though not as badly.

"No more obliviations," I said. "I fucking _hate_ obliviations. You're not the king of magic land. You're a human being like the rest of us.

"And don't you forget it."

•

Thanks to Jules for the idea of the Mirror of Erised drawing the line between Dumbledore and Tom, and for her laughter even though it induced coughing fits, and for another gift, a perfect gift, that only she could give me. And thanks to Freja for being a singular reader and a gentle usher. If it's keeping her interested, I must be doing something right. I made use of the HP Lexicon to remind me of where things were in Hogwarts. I never imagined that I would give a nod to John Donne in anything, but there it is in Tom's mind. And also a Patton Oswalt reference viz. the usage (though not the origination) of the phrase "bag of hammers". If the usage offends, then my apologies, Patton, from one geek to another. I know how every other fandom appears to one who's not into them.

Since I haven't posted a disclaimer in awhile, here's one. I'm very glad to have the opportunity to use this universe created by JKR and owned by her, or perhaps someone else but not me, to try to learn how to write - for my own education and amusement. All I get from this is a sense of accomplishment. It's not like my writing name is in the phone book. Nobody knows who I am, and that's fine with me.

Thanks for 10000+ hits on SIYE and 8000+ on ff dot net – but it's the six hundred and seventy-nine total hits on chapter 16 that mean the most to me. You folks are persistent, and clearly not thrown easily, and I like that in an audience.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

I was feeling my balances. That's important sometimes. Maybe one lousy thing that happens makes some good things lose their mass. And the houses of our demeanors make their bricks from the clay at hand, or something like that. And I feel that it's maybe more often than we believe that we have a choice in what gets used, because it stands to reason that if we aren't utterly immobile or asleep or something, we have a say in what we're building ourselves from, and what we grow in our gardens.

I was also feeling my balances because Ron and I had finally found our way to a pub and planted ourselves in a corner, and currently balance was something in scarce supply, in the sense that I had been introduced to firewhisky and it was currently slapping me around, in a kind of benevolently awful way.

I want to tell you about that moment. I was fresh from having some guy in my head who sounded just like me telling me I was going to be a bastard like him, and the idea was sort of sticking to me a little because I'd been hearing it in my own voice, and I was feeling claustrophobic and nauseated and all that, and just in general angry and horrified. Then the guy who caused all of this grief to me and Ginny and everybody by trying to handle everything himself tried to empty Sirius' memory because he thought it would be a good idea, and I got a little angry about it. I could have acted like that beating came from somewhere else, or that it was entirely just, or anything else, but what the truth really was, was that I boiled over. I couldn't take it any more. I had been almost helpless with that vaporous asshole in my head, and I suppose that once that was over I needed to act out a little. So the old wizard got a beating from somewhere in my vicinity. Broke some stuff, hurt a lot, and he was, as I have said, old, so that made it harder on him, and me, incidentally. I was trying to figure out why my remotely smacking him around somehow meant he won, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it was so. And I hated. _Hated_ that.

I was trying to console myself by thinking that he may have won something, but he'd have a hard time with the victory lap.

I was also trying to figure out why it was that I was so incredibly angry with him. The worst part was not trusting that it was all me. Now I had plenty of reasons not to like him – in no particular order, that he'd … he'd… boy, all the colors in the pub looked really vivid. Ron's hair was a little wavy, wasn't it?

Anger seemed like it burned hot and fast in me, and used circumstances for fuel, and since they had changed, probably for the better, the anger had gone on and burned itself out, and I could barely remember with any clarity what it was like to be mad at him.

And, I suppose, the drinking was helping that.

Now I want to be clear about something. You may be imagining that I was drunk at this point. You might be casting aspersions on my character, and assuming I was the kind of fellow to casually nip down the boozer and get right bladdered, or words to that effect. Well, if you are hasty to judge, then it might help to say that I'd not been in the pub but for about thirty minutes. Also, to set the stage, I had cultivated a bit of disdain for the kind of fellow who went to pubs, got a bit pissed in the fine English sense, and started gabbing about all manner of bizarre subjects, as that sort of thing had gotten me abducted from my happy home. So truthfully, it would have made me a bit of a hypocrite.

But yeah, I was drunk.

Foolishly, perhaps, I was still trying to think reasonably about everything. And to make matters worse, I was thinking out loud. Ron had a patient expression smeared over his face - that is to say, it may have been on his face in a perfectly normal way and the way I was seeing it was smeared – and he appeared to be nodding over his drink in all of the appropriate places as I dribbled out theories of why Dumbledore was a bastard, why I had every right to be mad at him, and why Ron's hair was so wavy, and he only stopped me twice: once when I said Tom's name, and once when I brought Ginny up. The first one had him saying, "not here, mate," and the second one had him saying, "wait until you're sober."

Well, I didn't understand why I needed to wait until I was sober and said so, and I also said that she was wonderful, it wasn't like I was going to say anything bad about her, in fact I couldn't even think of anything bad, it was like if I were going to explain to someone what fabulously attractive, smart and amazing and funny and did I say attractive, anyway what all of those things were each like, that I might best be served by just bringing her along and saying, "Like her." He seemed to accept that in the spirit in which it was intended, and it was only when I said she was also a great kisser and my feet were always getting hot that he got a little funny.

"It's a good thing you're so utterly clueless and honest at the same time," he said.

"Well, yeah, I'm clueless, I'm a… an empty plate, Ron, or an empty shoe, or what's something that holds things that know things? I don't even know a… hey, you're a guy."

"Well spotted," he said. On our table a bar napkin reared up and gave him what was unmistakably a once-over before collapsing back to inertness. He gave it only the most casual of glances.

"And you are with Hermi – Hermione," I said, with some difficulty.

"The first one's silent, mate," he said.

I frowned elaborately. "Everyone's doing that now," I said. "But look – you know what I'm talking about, right?"

"No."

"You mean to – you mean to tell me," I said, trying to marshal enough muscle control to raise an eyebrow and probably only succeeding in crossing one eye a little, "that when you look at Hermione that nothing gets hot or anything?"

"Well, sometimes –"

"Or there's this _other _thing, where I get this swelling –"

"Oi, leave it, Deasil!"

"Wow, I was only trying to explain to you about how –"

"Mate, you're not sober, and you are fairly new here in a great many ways, and because I know that, I'm mostly fine with the things coming out of your mouth at the moment. But let's maybe have a go at something else right now, all right?"

"Fine," I said. "How long does this –" I gestured broadly and indiscriminately around me, a grand sort of motion for this particular room if I thought about it. "- this spinny color-y thing go on?"

"Spinny color-y," he said. "Maybe a couple of hours, or I can get rid of it now. Handy little potion."

"I have… I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. You know, I kind of like it, because things don't _matter_, or maybe a little but not so bad, and I really hate how this day has gone…"

"Understandably."

"But I've no – noticed," I said, attempting to stand up and failing, "that I'm a little clumsy now, and that doesn't feel right." The bar napkin from before struggled upright, took a few awkward steps towards Ron's glass and then flung itself around it, becoming soaked with condensation.

He smiled a little, regarding me.

"So if Tom came back in I couldn't, you know, run or anything."

"You could stagger a bit," he said.

"I think most of my evasive maneuvering -" That was what I meant to say, but I'm not sure what came out – for all I know my talking sounded like someone trying to fight their way out of a slippery bathtub. " – would consist of slumping over things."

"Slumping."

"Well, yeah, but it would be _combat_ slumping, you know. _Offensive_ slumping."

"Drink this," I heard him say, though I couldn't see anything but the tabletop from a very short distance away.

I more or less propped up, and something was being placed in my hand, and it smelled like something I'd been tasting in the back of my throat for a moment or two. "What's in this stuff?"

"Nothing weird," he said. "Don't the, er, non-magical people put dog hair in?"

"I have no idea," I said, managing to focus an eye on the small bottle approaching my mouth, "what you're talking about. And it's a huge in- indicator of how much I trust you that I'll drink anything you give me after that other stuff."

The first swallow burned a little, and the second felt cold. Everything in the room seemed to jump into place, like a handful of nails being drawn to a magnet. It was a little sudden for me, but I just managed to not throw up.

I know I should describe the pub around now, since my awareness had sharpened considerably by that point, and because often when someone's telling a story if they talk about how a place looks, how the walls were the color of something or the dripping of water somewhere was like a clock or like that, then it creates a backdrop, a subtext, and the location becomes sort of a character who offers commentary and tells you how you might want to be feeling about what's going on. But the truth is that I really can't remember what it looked like at that time, and anyway I hate that kind of thing, and you'll never catch me doing it on purpose.

"Better?" he said.

I became aware of something in me, an otherness. A sore spot where I'd had no idea I'd even had nerves. Kind of an ugly spreading stain. As far as I knew, it hadn't been there before that day. I wanted to take a hot bath, only inside out. For a moment I wondered, half-heartedly, if the feeling came from the stuff I'd been drinking, but I found that I knew the answer to that - I just didn't like it at all.

"Your hair has been like that all along," I said.

"Hurts that you didn't notice, mate – all this time I've been styling it on the off chance…"

It took me a moment to realize he was joking. The man could deadpan.

The thing was, before that moment had elapsed I'd already said, "I'm really sorry, I mean you're really nice, and good-looking too, but it's your sister that I want to kiss all the time. And Hermione would probably –"

I stopped and then gave away ten points. "What? Oh."

"Erm, D, if you're sober, I feel it's time for another chat regarding Ginny." Well, that joking mood didn't last. "I can see you fancy her."

I fancy her. Sounded like I was her stylist. But I knew what he meant. I thought I'd see what he had to say, rather than leap up and hide behind the bar.

"Right," he said. "I'm not going to tell you to stay away from her. I've already told you that you need to treat her well. And if I'm honest, she's more likely to give you trouble than the other way around. You're a good bloke, D."

"Where are you going with the what huh?"

"Things happen to you, and around you," he said. A small mirror on the wall near us fell and thudded on the wood floor. I tried to ignore it. It was a coincidence.

"That's how it is with everyone," I said. "That's what we all… _do._ I can't imagine, I mean, there might be someone who sits in an empty room somewhere with no windows and nothing happens to them most of the time, but what would happen when they had to eat? You know, they'd either have to have a little pleasant talk with the pizza guy, or they'd starve to death, but then _that_ would be happening to them. And aren't you about to become a cop?"

"Yeah," he said, "but my job will be to happen to other people."

"How does _she_ feel about that?"

"Who?"

"Who else? Ron, when someone says '_she_' to you, don't you only think of one person unless someone tells you differently?"

He considered that for a moment. "Yeah. Suppose so. I hadn't thought of it that way."

"So how does she feel about what you do?"

"She wouldn't have much room to talk about it," he said. "The kind of work she does now is dangerous. The stuff they work with down there… well, you just never know, do you? She's only just started over there and many times she's come to dinner all pale and shaking, and she can't talk about it, of course, but when I've asked her if she would maybe consider more of a…a straight research position, she gets angry with me. Says I need to let her make her own choices."

"So what happened when you asked Ginny about me?"

"Well, I… I haven't, really."

"Why not?"

"Well, I know her, Deasil. She's only going to tell me to mind my own bloody business, and she can take care of herself and doesn't need her nosy brothers meddling about with her life."

"Okay, so –"

"But she _always_ says that. She wouldn't ask for help if she were hanging from a thread and if I were within arms' reach. She'd just deal with it herself."

"Annoying, isn't it?" I said, not thinking it was annoying.

"Stubborn, is what it is. Thick-headed."

"So Hermione doesn't say anything to you about being a cop."

"No, because she knows it's what I want. All right, you're saying I should leave Ginny to her own choices, and I'm meant to ignore the fact that we all let her down when she needed us before, and so now she has to do everything alone to prove something to herself."

"I wouldn't ignore that if I were you," I said. "Can I try to speak like Ginny?"

"Go on."

"Just because you gits have finally figured that out, doesn't mean you can come in and make her life difficult now."

He smiled a very small amount.

"But I see your point," I said. "I'd want to protect her, too, and I do. I don't know what I want to do, Ron. It would be one thing if I were just – you know, a guy – well, I am just a guy, but there's stuff wrong with me, and I don't want to get any of it on her."

"What – the memory stuff?" he said. "Nobody cares about any of that, D."

"Oh."

"It's the prophecy crap people get thrown by," he said.

"Right."

"Yeah, the 'you or him' bit, mostly."

Do you ever become aware of the weight of your arms? Like they were stuffed with inertia? Like if you were a turkey, or, to continue the metaphor, if your arms were turkeys since we're talking about arms, and who hasn't felt like their arms are large plucked birds once in a while, honestly, and someone filled them with lead pellets, assuming that you would sit still for that, I mean if you had turkeys for arms you might be fairly sensitive about it and have to wear special shirts, and a sportcoat would be pretty much out of the question, and you might not want anyone messing with your turkey arms at all let alone filling them with lead, and not in the shooting gangster tough-guy way but, you know, with a funnel or something. Anyway, that's what I felt. "I guess I can understand why people wouldn't want to be around that."

I realize I'm probably not communicating the dread, the thud of some unfamiliar and deadly future upon my semi-formed being. Some things have too much weight to speak heavily of them. Just know I was underneath it, and knew it, too.

"No, mate, it's not that at all. That makes us want to be around you more, really."

"Great," I said. "I'm the tall tree in the lightning storm."

"No, D. It just seems like you might want the company." He looked to the side in a small show of exasperation. "If all that seer stuff is true, I would think we'd be trying to teach you how to fight or something. I know that Remus has been trying to show you some basic spells and that, but if it were me I'd be sort of skipping ahead to the more meaty ones."

"Like what?"

"Well. Er, what about _Reducto_, or _Petrificus Totalis_, or _Expelliarmus_, to start with?"

"…What're all those?"

"Merlin's baggy pants, D. What the hell is Remus teaching you?"

"Umm… I was trying to get a feather to float."

He appeared to contain himself. Not in the sense of his skin seeming to be holding all of his guts in, but - you know, I may have to assume you know what I'm talking about. I'd hate to have to bring the turkeys into this again. "Ordinarily I'd say that's a useless spell, but I happen to know it works on trolls sometimes, if you're really lucky."

"Trolls," I said.

"Yeah."

"Is one likely to, uh, encounter trolls around here?"

He looked over his shoulder unhurriedly, then turned back to me and with a degree of certainty, he said, "Not in _this_ pub."

"Look. The cops here must know some, uh, spells…"

"Aurors."

"The cops here must know some Aurors –"

"No, the cops are Aurors, mate, you remember that's what I'm training to be?" I didn't. "Yeah, I know a few, and some that the Academy doesn't teach, thanks to her, and Ginny knows some good ones as well – look, would you maybe want to learn a few things from me, sort of in secret? I don't know what the hell Remus is thinking, but these would do you some good, at least in a situation where you don't make someone drop their wand."

"I don't make anyone do that," I said.

"It just happens?"

"Yeah."

"Bit unlikely."

"In what sense?"

He looked at me calmly for a second. "In the sense that if you hadn't been present, there is no bloody way that would have happened."

"Oh." I really liked Ron. I felt like maybe he and Tonks had something in common, but I couldn't imagine what it was. "Well, maybe I have something to do with it, but I didn't do it."

"Which brings me back to my point," he said.

"Which was?"

"Things happen around you."

"Okay, look, I feel like some of it is stuff I intend, or at least stuff that I would like or maybe feel, like when the rugs get all friendly or something, but most of it is just the right thing and me not getting in the way."

A bit more stillness from him, here in the noisy pub. He was waiting for his own moment to move. Finally he said, "I get that. Sometimes it's best to do nothing and let the other person show themselves."

"You're doing that right now."

"Yeah."

"Where'd you figure this stuff out?"

"Chess and death," he said.

I didn't have anything to follow that with, so all I said was, "Thanks for not wanting to leave me alone with this."

"I don't think that will be your problem," he said. Then a curious expression appeared on his face. "Except for maybe right now. Excuse me, mate." He rose and wended his way past the bar to a pair of doors, choosing the one on the right. I was fairly sure he just needed to relieve himself, and the blonde woman who'd taken a few steps after him but gave up quickly had nothing to do with it. I didn't know her, but I saw someone I did know.

Neville was sitting by himself at a table in a corner, a book balanced on its edge next to a glass of something really dark that had a thick creamy head on it. Little coin-sized flares of red emanated from deep in the glass. It made me think of stoplights on the corner outside the movie theater on that rainy night, and also the red of eyes glowing, wrongly, a betraying red and a warning red, and I could not prevent myself from seeing them, hatefully and rendingly, for a split second on Ginny's face. I had to shut my eyes for a second, and when I opened them again the blonde was right in front of me. A little too close.

"I'm Lavender," she said.

"How's that working out for you?" I said.

After a moment of surprise, she recovered. "Fairly well, I should say. Who are you?"

"Deasil," I said, trying to figure out what this was going to be about.

She frowned a little, and looked a little skeptical. It was kind of pretty. "And how's _that_ working out?"

"About like you'd think," I said.

She grinned, and then she smiled. The grin was better, because she made the smile out of only a little of the genuine leftovers of the grin. I found that I knew something about her now, and for some reason I was already tired of knowing things about her. I guess I was still too close to a bad mood, but the fact that she had replaced something real with something she thought would work at something (what, I had no idea) kind of bothered me.

"You're American," she said.

"Mm-hmm."

"What part?" Her head angled a little. It felt like she was cutting off my escape route.

"Um…" The bit on my elbow that looks like chewing gum, I thought. I made a special effort to come back to the conversation. The alternative was red eyes and things I couldn't understand or accept that were in me.

"Manhattan," I said. "It's in New York."

"Really, I've _heard_ of New York. Where in America is that?" Another tilt, and it felt like another facet of the crystal I was being trapped in.

"Uh," I said, looking around a little, "it gets cold there. And rainy, but it's not like here – it's more like baby spit, but it's in the northern part."

Her eyes went from being focused on me to taking slightly independent paths for a moment. Oh, they came back, but it took a second. While they were moving, she got pretty again, but when they settled again, it went away. I couldn't wrap my head around her. And that was an unfortunate visual for me at the moment as well. In any event she was weird.

"You're a friend of Ron's?" she said.

"Yes. Are you?"

She thought for a moment, then said, "We've known each other for ages, since school."

"So, no?"

She looked confused again. It was funny how "pretty" came and went with her. She had to be a little goofy to have any, and as soon as she recovered it was gone like a hole when it's filled with dirt. I was getting to the point where I wanted out of this. And I got my wish.

"Hi, Neville," I said, because there he stood, rescuing me like the hero he was.

"There you are, Deasil. I was wondering when you'd get here," he said. "Hello, Lavender. My friend here asked me for a bit of help with British customs. Awful lot to cover and all that. Excuse us, won't you?"

"Certainly," she said, though she looked a little disappointed, maybe a little thwarted, and in her disappointment she was once again pretty. I'd had enough of that. I followed Neville back to his table.

"Do you want a drink?" he said before sitting.

"Uh, no. Thanks. And I have to say that yours is making me uncomfortable."

"I'm sorry?"

All of a sudden I felt bad for saying it, though I knew he would understand.

"Well… it's just the… what makes it glow red like that?"

"It's only a charm, it's why they call it 'Old Firefly'."

"It makes me think of… glowing red eyes," I said. Unfortunately, the pairing of that with the firefly thing wasn't making it any better for me.

He picked up his glass and contemplated it.

"You know, that puts me right off this drink," he said.

"I'm sorry I said anything."

He wrapped a napkin around its sides. "No, no, don't be. It's a bit weird that I never noticed that. Still…" He took a pull at it. The idea of him drinking red eye cocktail was a little unnerving to me for a moment, but then I kind of saw it differently. It was a cup he'd drunk from before, one might say, and the taste had been bitter, but drinking from it made him stronger. It was disrespectful to Tom's memory, and that was good for Neville. And me.

"It is rather good," he said. "Care for a taste?"

"No, I had some before I came here," I said.

He set his drink down and examined the froth on the top. "How are you adjusting?"

"It's not like adjusting," I said. "I want it to be more like returning. But…"

He waited.

"I want to have been here all along," I said. "I'm having a little bit of trouble with the catching-up part. But it's not just with family and all that, you know, it's also… I don't really know how to…you know, be. I mean, parts of it I know how to do, but I'm still figuring out how to know so many people."

"Who'd you know before? Oh, right, Arthur and Molly Weasley, but surely…"

"If there were anyone else, I don't remember them. Maybe a girl, in a crowd once, but beyond that… no idea. How are you holding up?"

He looked down at his napkin-wrapped drink before looking me square in the eye. "I feel at turns relieved, useless, and full of dread."

"Why useless?" I asked.

He almost laughed.

"You understand the other two," he said.

"Yes."

"What's hard to understand about my feeling useless? I'm not who everyone thought I was, and everyone knows that."

"Actually, nobody knows that. Nobody knows who I am. Nobody knows I'm back. And even if they did… I haven't done anything at all. I don't know the first thing about being heroic or even fighting. Every time I've been around violence, with one exception, it was me hitting the floor or something,"

"Is Ginny still leading you with two falls to a submission?"

"Hey, I know she's short, but all that means is that the fist knocking you out is approaching from below."

"She's strong," he said, looking at his drink again.

"So you can use a sword," I said, apropos of nothing.

"Yes," he said, taking me in stride. "I suppose that's because I'm not so good at magic as some. I can cast spells, but I'm nothing like Ginny or Hermione or Ron."

My brain went out of focus for a moment, trying to resolve something. "So…so you went to terrorist headquarters to kill the snake, beat everyone there, with magic, now, burned the whole place to the ground, and then went up against Tom and a crowd of thugs by yourself with a sword and killed him, but you for some reason don't think you're that useful."

"It's not my turn this time," he said. "I'm not needed."

"Neville, if it's my turn this time, I have to tell you something: I'm not brave like you. I don't want to go against anyone alone. I'm learning a little magic, but magic didn't do it last time, it was you and your will. I understand if you want to sit this one out, but if you don't, then I want you around. I'm not sure how I feel about any of this and what fits and what's right, but I'm pretty sure you belong in it, and I think I need your help."

"Maybe you don't need to be brave to do it," he said. "Maybe you just have to hand yourself over to it. I don't know anything about being brave either. There just wasn't anything else for me to do."

I held still for a moment, thinking about this. In the middle of an inexorable motion, finding my place in that, things working out. That I could see.

"I'm not going to say you aren't brave," I said. "But I know what you mean."

He looked up again, going from drooping shoulders to a subtle straightening.

"You would," he said.

I wanted to talk to him about Tom. I wanted to tell him how Tom had been riding Dumbledore and how for a moment he was in here with me, and how that felt then and now, but I couldn't.

So I said, "I haven't seen Luna in a while."

"She sort of comes and goes," he said. "She lost her dad in the war, and it kind of loosened her roots, if you follow me."

Gardening metaphors. That seemed right.

"I didn't know that."

"I suppose I'm a little bit surprised that you haven't done that thing that you do with her."

"Frighten the rugs?"

He gave me a bemused look. "No, let her read you."

"I don't know if she needs to," I said.

"Yeah, she's awfully perceptive," he said, twisting his glass in place on the tabletop. "One has to like that. It's sharp and to the quick but it doesn't seem to hurt. Often times she'll mix some sort of exotic creature lore in with something that's just profoundly, perfectly true, so you wind up laughing a little bit, and while you're laughing you sort of re-hear what she said and realize it goes right to the heart of things."

"How can you not like that?" I said, smiling.

"People say some stupid things about her," Neville said, "but they don't seem to bother her, which is something else I like about her. I haven't been able to manage that one yet. She's interested in cryptomagical biology, which means that sometimes there isn't a lot of hard information about the creatures she wants to study, but she loves the field so much that she doesn't let other people dampen her enthusiasm."

"What makes people think they need to talk about her?"

"Yeah," he said. Then, after a moment, "Oh, you meant that as a real question, not a rhetorical one. My thought is that it follows the basic theory of 'cutting the heads off of the tall ones'. Hard to have an orderly English garden with a beautiful wildflower rambling about."

Neville was a hell of a guy.

Our conversation was interrupted by my seeing a coin on the floor and lunging for it for some reason and thus not being where a broad young man now suddenly was, with a thud, half-lying on the table. Neville's drink was in his hand a few inches over the head of the fellow. I thought to myself, there was never any chance of his drink getting knocked over.

"Sorry, Nev," the young man said. "Didn't see you there."

"Nor the table, nor my friend here," Neville said.

"Friend where?" He lurched around, and managed to corral both of his eyes to focus on me as I straightened up, holding a small piece of silver in my hand. "Oh. What you doing down there?"

"I've been missing you," I said.

"Do I know you?" he said, looking puzzled in a slightly belligerent way, which is to say his eyebrows crashed together like they were enemies.

"This is my friend Deasil," Neville said.

"Deasil? What the bloody hell kind of name is that?"

"You know when you stumble drunkenly to the right? They named that after me."

"Useful," he said. His esses were as broad as a river and similarly damp. "Michael. Michael Corner." He thrust his hand out to shake mine, only it wasn't anywhere near where my hand was likely to be, so he looked confused for a moment, because his hand apparently wasn't doing the expected squeezing and going up and down. He looked at me again, squinted, and then moved to his left a little before trying again. Even then I had to help.

"Hi, Michael," I said. Something nagged at the back of my mind, but there were plenty of unpleasant things back there already so I didn't go in looking for it.

"You're American," he said. "American wizards have shorter wands, eh Neville? Eh?"

"Really?" I said. "I wonder why that is."

"Erm, it's a bit of a myth," Neville said.

"Seen Ginevra?" Michael said.

Hm.

"No, I can't say that I have," Neville said.

I'd last seen her at my parents' house. She wasn't really looking at me. Sirius had just been saying that it would be good for me to get out a little bit and shake some things off, and my parents were a little hesitant to agree, but then Ron had said he'd come along to keep an eye on me, and Bill said he'd check in with us later, and then when I'd looked for that most important of people in the room, I saw her leaving, her face downturned, trying to be invisible. I'd said her name, and she'd said softly that things had been strange enough for one day and that she was going to go and study something that made sense.

It had been like a curse.

"Do you need to tell her something?" I said.

"Oh, yeah, I need to tell her a few things. The woman owes me."

"Did she borrow some money from you?"

His face sort of knotted, as if he were hearing a loud noise.

"She took everything I gave her and never – never… how d'you know her, anyway? Have _you_ seen her around?"

"I see her all the time," I said. "We live together."

"Do what?" he said.

I wasn't sure how to respond to a question that had nothing to do with what I said, so I plowed forward. "If she owes you something, she hasn't mentioned anything like that to me. You must have completely slipped her mind – I mean, we talk about everything and we're nearly always together, like night and day, and not a word about you or whatever this thing is. What?"

I was giving points away to strangers now. He had been looking, throughout my reply, increasingly as though he were trying to crack an egg with some un-visible part of his anatomy not normally used for that purpose and having no luck, though he was giving it great effort.

"She's _living_ with you? All that tosh about taking things slowly and wanting things to be bloody _special _and here she is shacking up with the first tosser to happen by? Just tell me she at least moved out of bloody Godric's bloody Hollow," he said, striking his forehead with some force.

"Why would she move out of her house?"

"You're living with her…" he said, apparently suffering a little from the blow he'd dealt himself. "In her parents' house. You're all just… living together, all bloody cozy, and they're fine with it."

"Well, they're my parents too."

"You see? This is what I'm… three years trying to get her to go out with me, and them staring holes in me, and the sodding twins turning my hair blue and slipping sodding potions in my food, and you come in from nowhere and it's like you're their bloody son."

"Well, yeah." He was weird. I say that a lot, but you know, there are a lot of strange people in the world.

"Flowers," he said.

"Erm…"

"Not conjured ones, either. The kind you buy with real solid galleons. And bloody chocolate by the trunkload. Even a bloody broom servicing kit."

Okay, I thought. Is it time for me to start listing _my_ favorite things?

"And that would have been nice," he said. "All of that, and you'd think maybe I'd get my broom serv-"

Neville chose this moment to interrupt. It seemed unlike him – he was usually so polite. "Michael, I think you may be a few past your limit."

Michael reoriented his head so that it was sort of facing Neville.

"Look – mate – Nev," he said. "I know we all owe you a great debt of gartude-" It was a new word to me too. "-but you don't know what you're talk – talking about. A bloke…" He assumed a pose that I'm reasonably sure he meant to be a thoughtful one. "A bloke does his part. He's charming and he's funny, right, and he tells the bird she's beautiful, there's no one like her, she's the most, most beautiful bird he's ever seen and he's seen a lot of birds, like Brown over there and Patil and Vane, and he tells her she looks good with him, right, and he was big and strong and would take care of her – you know, what she wants to hear."

"Are you sure you know what she wants to hear?" I said. "None of that sounds like her."

"All the same," he said, swiping his arm like he was fending off a six-foot marshmallow, or finding his way in the dark, or moving through cobwebs, or something. I wasn't sure what. Whatever it was like, it was an ineffective version of that. "They all want to hear the same thing, and then when you give it to them they treat you like dirt."

"What did she do to you?" I asked.

"'S what she didn't do."

"But… but she's very generous. I mean there's nothing she wouldn't do. She's done a lot for me, I mean just the other day-"

"Deasil, I think perhaps…" Neville said, interrupting again, which was funny coming from him.

"Bloody slag," Michael said.

You know, I didn't really get a lot of what these people were talking about. I suddenly became aware of Ron standing a little beyond Michael, doing his waiting thing. I wasn't sure what he was waiting for, but I didn't want to interfere, so I said, "What does that mean?"

"What does that _mean_?" Michael's voice got quite a bit louder. "It means she's a user. She – she gets you to like her, right, and then next thing you know you're doing things for her and no idea how it started and then she doesn't want anything to do with you, just leaves you hanging -"

He was saying more, but I wasn't hearing it. I kind of leaned out of the rant for a moment so that I could feel what was happening with me. He was describing things that were far too familiar to me, and to her. Why did he think she would do that? She wouldn't even come close to it – the thought would disgust her. That seemed clear enough, as she was now giving me a wide berth because Tom had gotten in for just a little while, and he'd plagued Ginny for almost a year. And why was she avoiding me when she knew what it was like? And what the hell was this complete stranger doing, stirring up my mess in my life?

He was still talking and that had to stop. "Shut up, Michael," I said.

He did, for a moment. Then he wound up again. "Now you fancy a go, eh?" His bottom lip protruded a bit. "You think if a little speck of a girl can push me around, then you can do whatever you like?"

"All I'm telling you," I said, feeling a spring tightening in me, "is Shut and Up. You don't know anything about her. You want to buy her or something, right? She's not for sale. She's not a reward, or a prize. You don't _deserve _things from her. If she wanted to give you what you wanted, whatever that is, she would have. And that's all you get."

"I don't have to listen to this, you sodding bastard -"

"Then you can listen to this," Ginny said, appearing from behind Ron, her sudden presence like – like something very – sudden. Maybe like a branch that knocks you off your bicycle, or a chrysanthemum in your cereal. Maybe a combination of those two. "You," she said to me, "mind your own bloody business. And you," she said to him, her focus sweeping like a prison spotlight, "_you_ can just sod right off. If you had been the kind of bloke who listens instead of shoveling useless gifts, you might have heard me when I said we were over."

I know she'd said I should mind my own business, but I could feel something wanting to break open in me at the sight of her, some precious relief that she was there and that maybe we could actually talk about this horrible day, and I couldn't bring myself to feel reprimanded or anything. I just wanted to reach out and feel her there.

But Michael beat me to it, grabbing her arm with some force and saying, "We're over when I say we -"

And that's as far as that went, because I felt a frown come down on my face like an avalanche, and it made me close my eyes, and when I opened them again he was gone.

She went from surprised to angry very quickly. The woman was volatile. "Where is he?"

"Somewhere muddy," I said. I was trying to break the frown, and it was lifting, but slowly.

"Is he all right?"

"If he gets his head out of the mud, he will be," I said. I was unfamiliar with my own tone.

"Did I or did I not tell you to mind your own business?" Strong arms in her pale t-shirt, folded over her chest. One forearm red from his rough hand.

"You did, but that -"

"I don't _need__,_" she said, stepping closer to me, "you or anyone else to handle my problems. Michael is a big idiot and he was about to be reminded of that by my wand. I was going to let him know in no uncertain terms what would happen to him if he ever put a hand on me again. He would look at me and know that I would not allow it again. And now what does he know?"

I abruptly realized it was not a rhetorical question. "What does -"

"You're listening. That's good. He now knows that when you are around, if he does something foolish, that _you _will put an end to it with your random wandless chaotic magic, and that _I_ will stand back and allow that. But when you're not around, he will assume I'm fair game."

"But he -"

"He does _not_ know now that I can beat him senseless on my own, and so he'll be tempted to get some of his own back with me. Thus, I will have to fight this battle again with him later. You've humiliated him and given him something to prove. Well done all round, Deasil."

"But I didn't -" I stopped, and waited for a moment. Her hair, red against her pale neck. "Are you going to interrupt m-"

"Probably. Get on with it," she said.

Okay, so I was jumpy now, and she knew it. But I had things to say. "He was saying…wrong things. I couldn't listen to them any more, and then he grabbed you, and it was, I mean, I didn't mean it, it just happened, but he was _grabbing_ you," was my convincing argument.

"And what could he have said that was so impossible to ignore? He was _drunk_, Deasil. Drunk people say stupid things."

"He said you were using him."

"That's it?"

That wasn't it. Don't make me say it. I don't have to say anything. I can just stand here quietly.

"He made you sound like…" Clearly I couldn't stand anywhere quietly for long.

She rolled her eyes impatiently at me. "Like what? Like a slag? A… a bloody scarlet woman? What? I kissed the boy a few times. He was cute at first. Then he got stupid and it had to end."

"Like Tom," were the words that came out of my stupid rubber novelty lips.

Neville took a few steps away, around towards Ron, I think to give us a little space. I was wondering what we needed space for, and I didn't like to imagine.

"He said I was like Tom," she said, her voice flat.

I felt a deluge of regret at having opened my mouth. I hoped I had backpedalling skills to equal my blurting ones. "It was – it wasn't even – it was what he said about how he was charmed by you and did things for you and then sort of realized that he … I mean it was really nothing like -"

"So," she said. "It was you who thought I was like Tom."

"No, I didn't, I don't, it was just too close, not you, but too close to what you said, and I knew that was nothing like you, and I couldn't stand it, and I finally figured out he was insulting you and I didn't want to hear it anymore."

No, my backpedalling wasn't any good.

"You think I'm like him, because he left something in me, don't you? You think I'm as bad as he is, don't you? You think I'm going to turn dark like he is and destroy everything around me, everything I l…" She took a deep breath.

"Well, I'm not, even if you think I am," she said.

"I don't!" It was like watching her roll away from me, down a steep hill, out of my reach. I couldn't let that happen. "I know you won't ever do that. I _know_ you. It was just too ugly, and too close, and I had just…" I stopped, because I wasn't sure what to say next. I didn't want to talk about Tom anymore. I was just full up with Tom. And that was my problem right there. "Look, I don't know what I'm supposed to do or not do. I just got here!"

"And how long is that going to work for you?" she said. Turning where she stood, she disapparated.

"But you're the one that thinks it about me," I said to myself.

Ron approached me and put a hand up for a moment, almost patting my shoulder I think, but then took it down.

"You got in where it's tender, mate," he said.

Okay, well, so we went and sat down, Ron and Neville and me, and I didn't have much useful to say, so we just talked about things. We just let things settle. I'd decided not to try to find her, because I figured I'd just say more stupid things that weren't what I meant. But the more I sat with them, the more it seemed that two conversations were going on, one of them in my head and unrelated to the young men I sat with. The outer one was Quidditch and plantlife and "she'll get over it", and the inner one was more like "She thinks I'm the one with evil in me, and maybe she's right, and maybe I should stay away from her though I don't want to though that feels wrong, really wrong, but I'd be protecting her from future stupid things and worse that might come out of me, but she just said she didn't need me to handle her problems and if I was a problem of hers, I mean I kind of like being _something_ of hers, then she'd handle me herself, okay, easy there, D, probably it wouldn't be like that, like what it was like when she did the volcano paradise island thing, and her hands were kind of squeez- …focus, man, she's furious at me, but I can't help it, I was mad at that guy and he grabbed her and then he had to go, I couldn't just let him do it, so okay, I feel protective of her, how else should I feel, and can I just feel it without doing anything about it? I don't _know_."

I said the last part out loud, I guess. They were looking at me a little funny, and I had to look at them funny as well, because for a second I didn't really recognize them. Redhead, quiet, serious but not far from a laugh, a guy who waited. And a dark-haired guy who had his head down a little, but not for any good reason. What was it again? The dark haired guy shifted and moved his drink, and I saw a flash of red in the glass.

Oh, yeah. Here's me, slurped up through a straw into awareness.

"All right, there, mate?" Ron said. Ron. Faintly hoarse voice but soft, casual, and sure. Remember him. It can't be that hard.

"I… I kind of – I forgot you for a second." I put my hand up to my head. "Maybe I need to eat or something."

"Not a bad idea. Why don't we get a…" He stopped and looked a little put upon. "Bloody hell. Excuse me." He rose quickly and retreated towards the back area he'd gone to before, leaving me and… Neville looking around to see what had gotten him up so quickly. It turned out to be that woman from before, only this time her way was blocked by a tall redheaded man. Bill. She was trying to get past him but he was cheerfully blocking her way between tables, asking her questions about how work was going and generally interfering with her purpose, whatever that might be. It appeared to be that she wanted something from Ron that Ron didn't want to give her, and it seemed to me that it was the sort of thing that Ron might only want to give to Hermione. Also it looked like she was very capable of wrecking Ron's wait-it-out-and-let-the-other-person-make-a-move cool. Her voice was rising gradually, though it was hard for me to understand what she was saying – pub chatter and a ringing in my ears – and it didn't sound like it was going to get softer any time soon, and, you know, it was bothering me, but I was tired of using magic to make things go away, so before I knew it I was wandering over to the two of them, bent on quiet. Or less noise, anyway.

She was becoming increasingly shrill. It was like walking into a wind storm, the sort in which large slabs of beef and pitchforks were being kicked up and thrown at one, and I know that sounds like the unfortunate meeting of a farm and a tornado and also I know that when I don't like things that it often sounds like I'm getting pummeled with food, and, well, I'm like that. But it was loud and I wasn't taking it very well. Maybe something today would be able to have sense made of it.

She was in mid-keen and looking a little disheveled when I said, "Lavender, right? I almost didn't recognize you from the volume."

"You," she said, appropriating me, "you tell William that I need to speak with his brother. You tell him he's in the way of two people who _need_ to _be_ together."

"Oh, hey, Deasil," Bill said, eyeing me but not really turning, as to do so would have given ground. "I was just telling Lavender about how Ron needed to floo Hermione about the – that thing they're doing together, that they always do together, you know."

"Argue?" I said. That was one of the things they always did.

Bill sighed a little. "No, not that." Lavender looked satisfied.

"Kissing, then? They do a lot of that. It's kind of funny, really, you'd think Hermione was a little stiff, you know, not very affectionate, I mean she's kind of formal, but I walked in on them the other day and she was really, uh, I'm not going to finish that sentence." Bill was cracking a smile and she looked like the smoking top of a campfire. "Anyway, that?"

"See now, Lavender? It's like I was telling you," Bill said. "They're very happy together. Now maybe if you -"

"So she's throwing herself at him," she said. "Anyone could do that – Ron likes a good snog, doesn't he? What man wouldn't?"

"Um, there's probably a bit more to it than-"

"Oh, come on, this is _Ron_ we're talking about, he's a _hero_, for Merlin's sake, he needs a partner more suitable for him, not some bookish public servant – d'you know what's unspeakable? That witch's hair's unspeakable -"

"Lav, you need to let this go, it was one time and he was drunk and she knows about it and it's over!" Bill's voice rose. As it did, a napkin rose off of the table next to him, opening more and more as he got louder, until at the moment he stopped when it was trembling a bit and poised up on one corner. He and Lavender turned to look at it for a moment, at which point it stopped trembling and fell to the tabletop in a sort of going-about-its-business way.

A little silence. Good for me to think in. She thought Ron was great. She thought Hermione wasn't. She didn't care what anyone else thought.

Right now, I didn't either. I wasn't going to get into it. "Bill, I have to get out of here."

He looked back at me. "Just a moment, Deasil. I need to tell my little brother we're going."

Lavender said, "And I need to _see_ him." She darted around us and went straight for the beleaguered guy in question, who was exiting the bathroom and looking like he was about to get a quart of blood drawn. She stood in front of him and started saying something to him that made him round his shoulders over.

"Getting his medicine," Bill said. Ron sank into a nearby chair and she settled into another and began to speak while attempting to take his hand, which he evaded.

"This is ridiculous," I said. "Can't we just – oh, never mind." I started to make my way over to them.

I could only hear the tone of her voice. It would go low and rich ("mmmmmmm"), then flip up at the end ("whoop") like a jester's footwear. Occasionally there was a little tinkling giggle, which would have put the bell on the toe, so to speak. I gave a split-second's thought to where I had seen or heard of that before, but no more than that. Ron's tone was morose.

"I wasn't," he said.

Mmmmmmmm whoop.

"You know what I said."

Mmmmmmmm whoop tinkle.

"I never did that."

Mmmmmmm.

"It was just that one time, Lav."

Whoop. Mmmmmmmmmm. Mmmmm. Tinkle.

"That was ages ago."

Mmmmmmmmm "-the way you look at me."

"You're imagining things. I look at you like someone who just wants a little peace."

"I can be very peaceful, Ron."

"I am peaceful enough with Hermione," he said, enunciating her name like he wanted her to know how it was spelled.

"I'm sure it's quite peaceful," she said. "She's such a thoughtful, bookish woman. There must be simply hours of peace while she's reading all of her books that she can't talk to you about."

There was a pause, after which his voice changed a little, becoming more stiff. "She's an Unspeakable, Lavender. I don't _need_ to know what her work is about. We talk about things that are important to us."

"Ron, can't you see? I _know_ you. You're a passionate man. You need a woman who is as passionate as you are. I know how we were together -"

"We were hormonal teenagers and I was trying to make her jealous!"

"We both know it was more than that," she said. He couldn't deter her at all. "Maybe you need reminding."

"I don't need reminding of anything! It's only her! Whenever I say 'she' I mean her. I mean, if there's a her, it's always her. Deasil! Deasil, mate, tell her about the 'her' thing, like it's always her, right?"

She didn't turn around to acknowledge me. "Do I make you nervous, Ronnie?"

"My mum calls me 'Ronnie'," he said. I wondered if he meant my mum or his.

"Does she not like Hermione or something?" I said.

"Not so much," Ron said. Lavender turned and glared at me with a dislike that looked sprayed on.

"You don't know her very well, then," I said.

She rose up out of her chair in a way I was supposed to be threatened by, and her wand was in her hand.

"I have been trying for weeks to get this man alone and neither you nor anyone else is going to interfere with me now," she said. I know she meant me to be cowed, but it was really more kittenish than anything. "You have all been trying to keep us apart, and I am fed up with it. I won't have it. Now go away and leave us alone."

I felt that this was getting away from me. I wanted to make sense of this thing, to solve this conflict. At least that would be one taken care of. Also it was distracting me from that creeping feeling of being preoccupied – in the sense that a car can be pre-owned - and anything that got in the way of that was good with me. "Any…way. Sit down."

She did, slowly, but making a show of indignation. Another pretense. This woman never knew when to stop acting, even though it made her plain. Okay, D, let's rub some brain cells together and make a spark. I put my hands on the table, for a little strength, maybe.

"So Lavender – when he says he loves Hermione do you believe him? I mean, you don't think he would lie to you, do you?"

"Erm… no."

"And that's what you like about him, right? He's honest and true and loyal."

"Well, yeah…"

"So when you try to get him to step outside of that… if he did, then you'd know you couldn't trust him, right?"

"I…"

"And then you wouldn't want to keep him because he wouldn't be who you were attracted to in the first place, right?"

"I…"

"So the one you want is someone who wants you and only you, not someone you have to try to take from someone else – so it's not Ron you want, because if he turned to you he'd stop being Ron. So why don't you stop trying to make him and yourself miserable and go find the other person?"

Her head turned down, her golden hair fallen past her shoulders; her eyes were pale with reflected light, her mouth tugged with thought, and as she leaned forward and breathed deeply to calm herself, her bosom swelled sweetly. She was pretty again. To me, anyway. Like that mattered to anyone, me included. But it was far better than the alternative.

"Sorry, Ron," she said. I almost didn't hear her. "I should have respected you when you told me how things were."

He sat still for a moment. "I made a promise to Hermione," he said, "and you didn't think I meant it. So you thought I was a liar _and_ that she wasn't worth respecting. The way I see it, you've been insulting us both, really."

"Oh, but – but you mustn't – Ron, it was your promise that made you seem so – good. I wasn't thinking of Hermione at all – I was just thinking that I wished someone would do that for me. I was looking in the wrong place, and I was… I was selfish, and you are both right to hate me."

"No one hates you, Lav. But you owe her an apology for being awful to her. She never understood why you were doing it. Me either, for that matter, until now, anyway."

"And I owe you one too. I'm sorry, Ron. I've been an awful hag." Well, that was going a bit far for her, but it was an effort.

"Just talk to her about it." There was finality in his words. Subtle, but I felt like it communicated that she was getting off easy, as long as she did right by Hermione.

She rose. "Your friend is smart, even if he's a little weird. He's met Luna, hasn't he?"

"She's one of my best friends, certainly the oldest," I said, liking that I could say that.

"Can't get much past her, either, can you? I always, kind of, secretly…" She didn't seem able to say she liked Luna. My friend was apparently a guilty pleasure. Bit of an underground sensation.

I wondered what the hell was wrong with these people.

"Right, that's me done," I said. "Say hi to her, Ron."

"Huh?"

"Your 'her,' Ron. The 'her' you're about to go see." I motioned to Bill, who ambled over.

"D…" Ron said.

"See you at the house," I said. "See, everything's fine, Bill. Let's go."

"Wait, where are we going?"

"Where can we eat?"

He paused, not ready for this question. Something occurred to him, and his face changed. "Can you really apparate long-distance?"

"Yes, if you don't mind throwing up."

"Well…there's a place near the bank – just opened, and I've been wanting to try it out. Mum has been forcing so much food down me that I never get the chance to eat anywhere else."

"The bank. Where's that?"

"How about the place you got your wand – can you manage that?"

I thought about it. The alley. I'd been there only in broad daylight, and it was surely evening by now. I'd listened to Hermione's explanation of how apparating works, how you had to visualize the place clearly in your mind, which is why I ended up in a wall in the stupid Chamber of aromatic Secrets (it smelled in there, that was another secret that didn't get around), and I remembered that I'd said, "What if you go at night?" and she'd first looked puzzled, then dismissive, then puzzled again. Then she'd said, "It's a locative spell. It doesn't matter about daylight." And I'd said, "What if it's raining there?" and she said that the rain drops are shoved out of the space that you occupy, most often, and I said okay but what if you only know what a place looks like when it's wet and you can't visualize it any other way, and she said that didn't matter either and when I asked why she got a bit more irritated and anyway I wasn't talking about that, I was trying to visualize the street outside of Ollivander's, and I remembered the door pull and how it was worn and yellowed and looked like a giant tooth, but like a tooth from a creature who was extremely patient because it allowed people to put their hands on its teeth for years and years until they were slightly…

"I've got it," I said. I grabbed his hand.

•

That sucked.

I mean to say it was like being pulled through your own navel by a vacuum cleaner that you'd swallowed earlier. Then burping yourself up again.

As the alley puddled around me I felt happy that I'd held on tightly to Bill, and wondered what would happen if I let go during the suck. Would he have made it here if he hadn't had a visual memory of it? If not, where would he have gone? If he'd stayed half-way, then where was that?

I was definitely hungry.

Until Bill threw up next to me, which took the edge off of it.

"You weren't kidding about the sick," he said after a moment.

"I wouldn't lie to you," I said, scratching my forehead. In the falling dark I saw that there were only a few people about. Behind Bill a tall man spun and headed down another alley, and the sounds of owls and final commerce were faint. Ollivander's store was closed and shuttered.

"It's back towards the bank," he said, making his mess go away someplace – I hoped it was a place where they were tolerant of that sort of thing: you know, vomit appearing out of thin air. It was a funny bit of magic, that I didn't want to practice – I mean I liked to move things around sometimes, or maybe make some idiot go away and stick his head in the mud where it had been metaphorically for some time, but I didn't get _rid_ of him or anything, and I didn't make him someone else's problem. It struck me that people didn't want to think about it, and definitely didn't want someone showing up later with a heap of discarded stuff, saying "I believe this is yours?" But you can't get something for nothing, and when things vanished, they appeared somewhere else – at least it seemed that way to me. Woolgathering in this manner, I followed Bill up the street, past a used robe shop.

"So I ran into Ginny right before I came over," he said, and he sounded casual, so he was making an effort. "She seemed a bit put out."

"Yeah, we had a similarity of opinion," I said.

"A sim – how so?"

I felt tired answering it. "She thinks I'm an ass, and I also think that I'm an ass."

He laughed.

I said, "I got a little angry at a guy who was also being an ass -"

"Michael."

"–and kind of took things out of her hands, and she got angry with me for doing it."

"Right," he said. "On the one hand I applaud your desire to protect my little sister. On the other hand, I know she despises that."

"Well, I know why she hates it when you guys do it," I said. "She feels like it's too little, too late, and since she's taken the trouble to get strong on her own, it's kind of useless for her brothers to start looking out for her now."

He was silent for a moment as we walked. "I must say I hadn't heard it put so baldly before, Deasil, but you're right about that. So it must be equally frustrating for her to get the same thing from you."

"But I never knew her when she was going through all of those things."

"Yeah, but she had a roomful of brothers who did know her, and when you grow up with brothers they're part of the rulebook that you use to evaluate men." We had come to the bank, and stopped in front. "As much as we love her and she loves us, there's a part of her that wants to escape us and be her own person, and when she's around someone who she… likes, she will react strongly when she feels like that person is treating her in the same way as the people she wants to escape from."

"So it doesn't matter if it just feels natural to protect her?"

"Well, no, not really. I'm not saying this is just, or fair. But I am saying she is who she is, and part of being with her is accepting that."

"Accepting that?" I wasn't really sure what he meant. "How is that different from…I mean, I already know that she's who she is – who else would she be? And if she were someone else, we wouldn't be talking about her."

He looked a little puzzled himself, but then his gaze wandered to the side street behind me.

"Is that Fleur?" he said. She was his girlfriend – we had not met. "She shouldn't be going down there."

I looked down the street and saw no one. "Who? Where?" Surely that was worth points to someone, but I don't count those.

"She's right there – Fleur!" He hurried past me. "Come on, Deasil, and keep up, it's a little dodgy over here."

I followed him, though there wasn't anyone there. There was a flicker in the air at the end, as if someone had thrown gauze made of silver, and my first thought at seeing it was "That's not for me." It was a strange thought, but I didn't have any time for it. Bill was several strides ahead of me, passing bins of black furry things that looked like giant spider legs and tiny replicas of heads. Ordinarily I would have stopped and looked – no, I wouldn't. He rounded a corner and I briefly saw his shadow on the wall to the left, larger than human and with his arms out, then it was gone, leaving an afterimage in my vision. I followed him around the corner and almost ran right into him.

He had stopped in front of a pale blond-haired man in a black robe. Bills arms were out but not moving, and in the growing dark he looked a little gray.

The man held a wand in one hand, and a silver-tipped, snake-headed cane in the other. He looked a little pleased with himself.

"Accio wands," he said. Bill's popped out of his pocket and ended up in the man's hand, but I'd left mine at home.

"Out without your wand," the man said, a little slowly, as if he were demonstrating the act of speaking. "That leaves you defenseless."

Bill was still. His eyes blinked rapidly, but that was all. This struck me as odd.

"Thanks – I'll try to remember that. Who are you?" I said.

"My name is Lucius Malfoy, and I know who you are, boy."

"How? Do you know my parents?" The name was familiar. Kind of on two levels.

"You might say that. Ever since the prophecy was made," he said.

"You know about that too," I said.

"Of course I do. We knew of it almost as soon as it was made."

Hm. I was thinking a couple of things – one was that I'd thought the prophecy was supposed to be a little bit of a secret, and here perfect strangers in the street were bringing it up. The other was that I wanted to ask Bill about that but he was still standing utterly still. I kind of wanted to ask him about that as well, but sometimes I feel like letting people do what they're doing if I don't understand what's going on, because I might learn something.

"It was wrong, of course," he said. "Whatever weapon you used on our master was insufficient, as he had already learned how to move beyond death."

Oh. Wait. So this man was a Death Eater, only without the mask on. This was the weird–guy-from-the-alley's dad… the man who gave Ginny the diary with Tom in it… she fought him. She and Ron and Hermione.

"And then what happened to you?" he said, as if speaking to a small child. Quite separate from any thoughts I was familiar with came a brief one, unlike me, raking over my mind before vanishing utterly: _How dare you._

He went on. "Taken from your family by Sirius Black when you were four, only - that didn't really happen, did it? Very mysterious, I should think. And no one able to speak your name – rather ironic, yes? Gone all these years, everyone believing you're dead, and then, as the Dark Lord returns from evading death a second time, you reappear."

And he had given her a scar on her arm, a pink mark. Like breaking the calm of a perfect lake. He gave her a scar on her perfect arm.

"I thought that you were supposed to be lucky," he said.

"Luck is a funny thing," I said.

"Surely. All of these years you've been hiding from him and now you just happen to stumble into my hands. Luck, you stupid boy, appears to be all –" he pointed his wand at me "- mine."

"Things happen," I said.

"They do," he said, "and they have only begun to happen to you, Mister Potter. Starting with the long-overdue deaths of your worthless parents, and the torture of your friends – oh, and that would include Miss Weasley, would it not?"

"She is my friend," I said. I was aware of my own stillness and of something in me that was anything but still.

"The dark lord will make great use of you," he said. "Your suffering at his hand will increase his power and return him to the glorious road you somehow drove him from all those years ago."

I said nothing. I was too loud inside.

"He has carried us a long way, Harry Potter, through taking pain and giving it, transforming it into ecstasy, through bringing death and now, soon, defeating it. The killing makes us stronger, you see. And when we have learned to take life as he does, then he will show us all how to cheat death, using the deaths of mudbloods and muggles to augur our own immortality.

"It's too bad your blood-traitor slut will not survive to serve us in that fashion," he said, and the sibilance in his voice was like a branding iron on skin. His wand was black and shiny in the dusk, as though it were coated with a viscous fluid.

"Ever since we used her to open the Chamber I have thought of… other uses for her. Cast aside by the dark lord like a dirty dish, or a used tissue perhaps, yet there is still a little spark left in her, and I should think that I would rather enjoy watching that spark… go out."

Well, it's strange. But at that moment, I was being drawn along by something that I couldn't identify. Trying to find my place in this. There was a question, and an answer, and an action. I thought so, anyway. I felt like Arthur had, in the pub, a long time ago. I didn't want this. Regardless of my unrest, my stirred-up depths, my inner dark whomever it came from. But there was a simple quality to the moment. Something that felt undeniable. Something I could fit into.

Question, answer, action.

"Are you sure that's what you want?" I said.

The question seemed to surprise him. He considered me a moment before answering. "Quite sure," he said.

"You won't reconsider? You won't let her be?" I said.

His upper lip bent upwards. A brief shimmer of saliva connecting, like a spider web. "If this is your idea of begging for her life," he said, "then I don't believe you've quite got the spirit of it."

"I'm asking you if what you've said is what you are going to do. If you are a man of your word."

He was seeing something other than me, in his mind - I could tell by the way his eyes went out of focus briefly. I didn't want to look in there, but I knew I had to.

I can't talk about it.

"It is my right as part of the order that is to be, and is ever the way of men of power," he said. "I do as I will."

"I know you would," I said.

His eyes went wide, and from his chest I heard a twisting sound, a snapping and a muffled wet rending sound, and the shape of his torso changed, a small ripple, like a shadow had passed over him. He gasped once, and fell face-down. Never an object more still than his body, as his robes settled over him, bunching at his neck and revealing bare shins, pale between his dark socks and trousers.

"What – what…" Bill said, taking one unsteady step forward.

"I think I broke his heart," I said.

We were even.

•

A/N: Thanks to everyone for their patience in waiting on this update. I also want to thank moshpit for a read-through and some very good ideas, and Freja for insight and good humor, and Jules for the final seal.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

I want to talk about something else for a little while.

Not unlike me. I know.

The room that my parents gave me when I came home, and there's no other word for it than home now, was spacious but not extravagant. It held a large comfortable bed without fussy extra pillows that would be useless, and a few ancillary pieces of furniture, including a dresser filled with clothes by my mother and father, some bookshelves, a bedside table, and, most significantly for this moment, a vanity with a mirror on it, a large oval mirror about a meter in height.

I first encountered the mirror the morning after my first full night's sleep in the house. Upon awakening abruptly in a strange place (which, I realize, is strange coming from me, considering all places would be strange to someone who didn't remember anything), I heaved myself out of bed rather quickly, which turned out not to be a fabulous idea as I was somewhat tangled in my sheets (which sounds like a metaphor for something, doesn't it? For confusion or drunkenness or maybe the feeling you get when you're trying to do something in a knee-jerk kind of way without thinking about it because you're startled and wind up wiping out, which is what I did – oh, look, my sidebar got ahead of my actual story. Remember me?) and thus I fell to the floor like an armful of firewood.

The thing that got me up off of the floor was not my perky, resilient nature, but rather a few mocking words from near the door to the bathroom. I jerked up like someone had dragged me by my boxers.

"You'll want to watch that, dear," is what I'd heard.

There was no one else in the room with me.

Well, what magical crap is this? I thought, looking around – nobody under the bed, nobody in the closet, nobody in the bathroom.

"All right," I said. "Who is speaking, please?"

"Your boxers are in quite a state, dear," the voice said.

They _were not_.

"Okay, now, where are you?"

There was no answer. I came out of the bathroom and caught my reflection in the mirror. Wow - I did look a little rough around the edges. My boxers were a little wrinkly, and my hair was sticking out like it was trying to get away. I ran my fingers through it to try and flatten it a little. I thought briefly that it must have been a reflexive motion for me, but I couldn't remember doing it even though it felt natural enough, and –

"Not much point to that, is there, dear?"

The voice came from the mirror.

"It's a talking mirror – oh, sorry," my mother said from the doorway. She was looking back out into the hall with some intensity. After a moment, she said, "I didn't mean to burst in on you, it's just that I thought you'd be a little startled by the mirror – they all talk a bit. I'll just come back in a moment."

"Wait a minute," I said. It looked like an ordinary mirror. I couldn't find a mouth in its frame anywhere, and it was no thicker than usual. "Is it… smart or something?"

"It's an enchantment," she said, still looking into the hall.

"Is something coming?" I said.

"What?" Thanks for the tenner, nice lady.

"You keep looking out there…"

"Oh – oh…no, dear, I'm – I'm being foolish. You're my son. I changed you."

I thought about why she was being metaphysical with me and came up with nothing. "I feel about the same," I said.

She finally turned around and laughed. "Don't ever feel you have to be different." She came into the room and pulled a robe from the closet, handing it to me.

"Do they all do it?" I said.

"Do what?"

"Talk to you."

"Yes, it's a charm. They've been like that for generations. Your paternal great-great grandmother," she said, while doing something that appeared like stretching while trying not to look like stretching, kind of a sneak-stretch, like a sneak-scratch really, though that's more of a current comparison than a comparison I could have made then, not having seen sneak-scratches until I saw Ginny do it once in the company of some politicians from the magic government, and by that I mean the governing body of magic-using people and not how it sounds, I mean how it sounds to me, because magic government sounds like something automatic and mindless that you just switch on or something, but anyway it was a time Ginny wanted to scratch but thought she shouldn't, so she kind of did other things that looked like they weren't scratching but she really was scratching, and that's what my mother looked to be doing, though I couldn't figure out why she'd hide it from me, and maybe she wasn't and I just thought she was, but she was saying something about my great-great grandmother, so I should have been tuning that in and did, "was a rather gifted witch at charms."

For some reason I was expecting there to be more of an explanation.

"Erm – why?"

"Why was she gifted?" she said. I could hear a warm humor in her voice, and I knew she knew what I meant but was feeling playful. To me at the time this was a gift.

"No, why have mirrors speaking disparagingly about your boxers?"

"It's a custom in older families," she said.

"Insulting your underwear?"

"Enchanting day-to-day objects," she said, her grin like a climbing vine as she lowered her head. She was waiting to laugh. I really liked her.

"What else does it do?"

"Nothing else."

"Just pick on you."

"Right in one."

"No, uh, catoptromancy?"

She looked at me like I'd just said "catoptromancy" out of nowhere.

"How do you know what that means?"

"How so?" I said, cautiously avoiding the loss of points.

"You don't know anything about magic, but you know what catoptromancy is?"

"Yeah… you know, as one… does."

"Hmm."

"So this mirror isn't good for anything but riding you about how you look?"

"Not as such."

"Is it…you know, _on_ all the time?"

"Yes."

"Weird."

"It's astounding what one can become accustomed to," she said.

"Where's its…"

"Yes?" Crafty woman, not knowing the game and yet avoiding a loss.

"…brain?"

"Doesn't have one."

"And no mouth either?"

"No, and the explanation for that will take a little time – how does breakfast sound? Your father…your father is going to cook this morning. He's quite good at it, really. He's done it since he was a boy."

It was the pause that pulled at me, her getting used to calling her husband that again, that made me drop the mirror thing for the moment, but the story doesn't end there.

The next morning I struck up a conversation with it, insofar as it was a one-sided conversation interspersed with occasional non sequitur critique of my state of disarray by the mirror.

The following morning I gathered that it was limited in response, but wondered if it could retain information. I put on a horribly wrinkled t-shirt and received a bit of commentary, and had an idea.

The next morning I put the same t-shirt on, and the mirror, after a moment, suggested that I abandon that t-shirt as it wasn't getting any better.

The next morning I put a blanket over it, and it said nothing.

The next morning, a bewildered and frowsy Ron helped me to make a t-shirt that said, "Mirror thinks for itself." I rumpled it a little before wearing it.

The next morning I wore one that said, "Mirror doesn't think for itself." I rumpled it a similar amount to the other before wearing it. I took one off and wore the other alternately a few times, standing there, until the mirror said the old one looked better and pronounced the new one "foolish".

So all other things being equal, it could remember, it could read, it had preferences, and to my mind it had self-awareness. I figured my mother was wrong about it not having a brain, but I couldn't tell where the mirror kept it.

The next morning the mirror objected to the pattern in the bedspread.

Over the course of a week or two, it began finding fault with a wide range of things in the room. The drapes (which of course took it far too personally), the color of the walls, the oppressive proximity of the bed, and so on. Its mildly chiding tone had developed a brittle edge. I gathered from its shift in demeanor, its terse and cutting comments, and the pauses that it would insert after delivering them that were just long enough for me to think it was done talking and start to say something only to be interrupted, that something was, not to put too fine a point on it, bugging the crap out of it. After several rambling complaints that gave the impression that the mirror was inconsolable, I struck upon the main irritant to its existence – the window. It was open often (especially since I was likely, of an evening, to be visited by a beautiful redhead, possibly on a stolen vacuum cleaner), and the breeze was irksome to the mirror – in fact, the paint on the frame had begun to crinkle and flake. This gave me a small burst of inspiration, the effects of which, on her inadvertent viewing of the results the following afternoon, caused Ginny to squeal in a way that I found to be inexplicably stirring, and she knew it immediately, based on the narrow-eyed gaze she leveled at me, but didn't say anything except that one would leave it to me to teach a mirror how to blink.

She hated it.

•

I was beginning to realize that I cared about what Ginny felt about things more than I cared about most other things. And that was occupying most of my conscious mind, standing there with Bill. I'm not saying I wasn't feeling anything else – I'm saying I had no access to it at all. Or I was blocking all access to that other and wanted no part of it at all. I was trying to lie to myself, and that was completely wrong, and I hated that completely. That didn't fit, like the rock in the movie theater. _I_ didn't fit. _I_ was wrong.

"Where am I?" I said.

Bill was silent. We were standing in a garden that was slightly overgrown, next to a towering house that in the advancing dark looked mostly like a gnarled and jagged talon. Bill had said it was his childhood home and nobody would come here, and side-alonged me, and that had been sufficiently like going down a drain that I never wanted to travel like that again. Bill had apologized and said he was having problems concentrating. I got that. I'd told him in the alley, as much as I could, about what I'd seen in Lucius. His name, which I would never forget now. Bill had closed his eyes while listening, and when he'd opened them, he'd given the body one sharp kick, which was like a blow to my own glass bones.

"It's called the Burrow," he said.

"It's above ground," I said.

"I didn't name it."

"That's not what I mean anyway."

"What is it, Deasil?"

"People who want to torture and destroy until everything is gone. Everything. Piling up the bodies until nobody is left. Red-eyed monsters who get inside of you and poison-" I tried to control my nausea. Couldn't talk about that. "Prophecies made by self-serving liars, talking mirrors, travelling by fireplace, sports on household cleaning tools, people turning into rats and dogs and deer and cats or juggling each other in the air or making giant lizards out of movies or –"

"Deasil," Bill said.

"Where the hell am I?"

He sighed. "It's just life," he said.

"Whose idea was this?"

"No one's," he said. "It just happens this way."

I knew he was right, but it just seemed hateful to me at the moment.

"I just -" My arms seemed to dangle, uselessly. They were all wrong. Too long, or something. I hated having them. Anything to distract me from talking, or maybe from listening to myself talk because I was surely going to talk.

"I just … got here," I said. She was right. It didn't matter if I just got here. It only mattered what I did, and what I did was…

"And I just killed that man."

"Deasil…"

"He said, I mean, I saw how he was, what he wanted. He was a …" I gulped up high in my dry throat. "He was a really bad man."

"Yes, he was, and -"

"He meant it, he meant what he said, he was going to… uh. Ginny." My forehead was damp, but my hand was dry. It came away with sweat gleaming on its surface.

"Do you _know_ that?" His voice was like crackling paper to me, and it made me turn my head to him.

"I heard him. Inside."

"Because you're a Legilimens."

"Yeah."

He crackled at me a little more - probably he didn't, but I hated a little of everything just then: "Good enough for me," he said.

"We just left him there," I said.

"It was best," he said. "It may come out in the end, but it was the right thing to do for now."

I wanted to say, won't he get cold? Or what happens when someone finds him there? What if a child finds him? What would that feel like?

"Besides," he said, looking at the house, "bodies don't last long in Knockturn Alley. Someone always has a use for them." His tone was difficult to understand. Everything was.

"You can't tell her. You can't tell Ginny," I said. Her arm, scarred from fighting for her life, her sweet glowing life - her in a vast dark room, lying on cold damp stone, alone with a book and a shade, that sweet life ebbing low.

He looked at me for a quick moment and then turned away, scuffing his feet in the dirt path leading to the house. His voice flared in the quiet dusk. "Why not? He ruined her life! You avenged her! He'll never be able to hurt anyone again!"

I sighed. You will things to settle, and sometimes they do, a little, and you can act like the things that hurt aren't happening to you, or not any more anyway. Things re-assume their usual forms. The house, for one, no longer appeared threatening, now that I was still. Tall, and put together strangely like blocks stacked by a three-year-old, but it was just a house. "Bill, listen to me. Her life is not a ruin. You know how she would feel knowing I defended her again. I stepped in trying to save her instead of letting her take care of herself. She's a strong person," I said," but she doubts herself, and having someone else fix things without her is like… going over her head."

He thought about this for a moment and then looked back at me. "And you don't think she would want to know that you did this for her? You're her knight in shining armor, for Merlin's sake," he said, his voice perforated with bitter overtones. "You've slain a dragon for her. More than any of us ever did."

The words brought up that revulsion, rising like a snake inside me, filling my throat. I closed my eyes tightly, as if that would help.

"What?" he said. "He was an evil bastard. He's killed and tortured more times than anyone can know –"

Nausea. A feeling of heat. Sweat. "And I've only killed once, so that one doesn't count?"

He was quiet. He ran a hand through his hair, which was lighter than hers, and when it dropped to his side I saw his silver earring shining.

"I'm not saying that at all, Deasil."

"It was what I had to do, to step in. You see how things are going, and you know you can do something about it, and you do that. You can't sit there and watch it. It's just…" I looked him in the eye, her beloved oldest brother, and said, "It's too ugly."

It just _happened._ It was simple. It was almost easy. If I had no memory of my life before this, I had to wonder if I had done it before. Who I had been but couldn't remember. If that's who I really was, underneath it all.

Someone who could just kill someone else.

He inhaled brokenly, and I thought I must have shown him something without meaning to. "You don't want her to see that in you."

"No. No, I don't. Not any more than she already does."

He held my gaze. "This war is far from over. There will be more killing before this ends, and whether I like it in myself or not, I would rather be the one doing the killing than to be the one dying. And if that means I give up a part of myself to be a home to that horror, but it also means that my family will make it through this, then that's what I'll do. And my baby sister…my sister would do the same for us. For you."

Ginny. Ginny hurt. Ginny dying.

"Besides," he said, "what she sees when she looks at you is probably herself."

My turn to kick the ground. Dust stirred up in a listless whorl. For a moment I imagined kicking up enough that it would obscure the world from me. That I could stay inside the dust and not hear or know anything else.

But then, flickering into my mind just as it had been to see: the image of her ponytail, bouncing in the dark like a torch. And I knew that escaping – life or conflict or her – was no longer possible. Suddenly, the wish to talk to her and tell her everything was bright, almost blinding, but I beat it down, hard. Ugly, real, necessary. The same world that made her, that made my brother and Luna and my parents and Arthur and Molly, also made Lucius, and Tom. And made some ugly things necessary. I understood them wanting to protect her. And if all I could do was swallow this, keep it to myself…

Sighing, the snake inside coiling, slithering back down into my stomach.

"Tell her he attacked you," he said. "Don't tell her why you…why it happened."

"You have to understand something," I said. How to explain this. "I can't – I can't lie to her. I promised her, and things glowed, and I'm not sure what that meant but even if it meant nothing I can't lie to her. I can't _not_ tell her the truth if she asks. And she can read me anyway, just like I can read her, even though I try really, really hard not to do it."

He gave me an appraising look before saying, "Are you okay with not bringing it up?"

I exhaled loudly. "Very, very okay."

"I'm sorry-" He said this abruptly, then hesitated. "I'm sorry I didn't do it – I couldn't do anything –"

"Bill, I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

Not even myself.

•

A/N: A baby changes many things, like for instance the meaning of the term "spare time" – which now is defined asa "something you don't get." For those patient enough not to abandon the reading of this story, I offer a blend of apology, thanks and encouragement. I'm not done telling this story – there's a lot left to do, and I can't wait to do it all. Thanks to moshpit and Sovran for reading along and good input; to those of the Metafic community who say that a chapter is as long as the author says it is; to Freja, whose good wishes go a long way; and to Jules and Jane, without whom, as the poet said, "all the toys of the world would break".


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

"Somewhat diminished."

A tense-looking woman with a sort of dour scrap of white cloth on her head leaned back from over me. Behind her the world slowly spread across my vision like an overturned glass soaking a tablecloth.

I was lying down on a sofa near the front door of a nice house. Lovely room, really, filled with the sleepy light of mid-afternoon, and that was curious, because the last thing I could think of that I kind of knew for sure I had possibly done was at night.

And I wasn't clear about what that had been, but I was fairly certain that I didn't like it at all.

What I also hated was that I didn't know why I was here, wherever that was, and not in the place where what was about to have happened next would have happened next, and something must have happened that made me forget, and that usually wasn't for any good reason, or any reason I would enjoy, anyway.

I really felt like I was missing… something. Or just missing.

Story of my life.

And I _really _felt like I had to use the loo. Like I was going to –

Poppy. That's who she was. She of the taut hat.

Hermione appeared over Poppy's shoulder like an unexpected stop sign. "You're looking quite atrabilious," she said.

I was feeling a little defensive at not knowing what was going on all of the time, and made a snap decision that I was going to start faking it.

"Wouldn't you?" I said, trying to sound anything but noncommittal. I mean, I probably did look a bit atrabilious. Not remembering can do that to you.

"Well, I'm not quite sure," she said. "Can you tell me what happened?"

My pants were tight.

"The usual," I said, trying to suppress the question mark.

"So you remember."

"Sure." They were really kind of uncomfortable, these pants.

"Then you remember the part about your… whilom home of Manhattan."

"Well, you know," I said. "Can't forget about that. It's where I was, you know, before."

"And the homeless man? And the girl? And Sirius? And Ginny?"

She was making it increasingly hard to fake it. None of those drops were landing in my bucket. Also, I was beginning to think a change in position was in order. What was the deal with these pants?

Hermione and I realized what the deal was at about the same time. She beat me to it. She glanced down at my middle, and paused. Her eyes showed a little more white all around, and her cheeks became convex - then slightly concave - before she averted her gaze and said, "I see that you remember Ginny, at least."

That's what the deal was.

Well, listen, my reader, and cut a man some slack. It wasn't as though I'd had any ownership of the damned thing for very long as far as I could remember, and it was horse-like, in that without any training it pretty much did what it wanted. And only in that way was it horse-like. I mean it's perfectly okay, it's just – hey, let's just drop that metaphor.

"How could I forget Ginny?" I said, trying to shift so that I might ease Hermione's embarrassment.

"You almost did, but not entirely," she said. "But I had to…"

There was a bottle in her hand with flowers on the label.

"You had to wash your hair?" I said.

"No, I had to wave this under your nose and… tell you I was her." This seemed to embarrass her more than the other thing.

"Oh," I said. I made a decision not to look her in the eye and simplify all of this. I'd promised her, after all.

But that didn't stop me from thinking.

"_Just_ tell me?" I said.

Poppy cleared her throat.

"I mean, you didn't do anything else?"

"I see you don't remember our um… er… umquhile conversation," Hermione said, not allowing our eyes to quite meet.

"The one about who you're going to marry?"

"Err… yes, that one."

"Obviously I do."

"Then you know that I would never – that is to say, I couldn't possibly…"

"No, you'd just stoke the embers of my memory by waving a little shampoo around?"

"The sense of smell is our most primal," she said, trying to sound reasonable against all indications to the contrary.

Further attempts to make Hermione squirm a bit were interrupted by someone shooting a flamethrower fueled with beautiful into the room. "What the bloody hell is going on here?" said the most viciously attractive woman I'd ever seen. Her name was Ginevra, as if I could forget that, and she could make things burst into flame. Like me, I mean I was apparently highly flammable as far as she was concerned. I was entirely immolated, and not just my feet, either.

"He's waking up," Hermione said, quailing slightly in the presence of this smoldering wonder.

"And what was he before that?" she said, advancing in much the way that a wolverine might if it were intimidating a pair of lions, albeit somewhat willowy and retiring lions who weren't particularly aggressive and would rather avoid confrontation to begin with.

"Well, he was -"

At this point I began thinking furiously about something else.

My vision went all pale.

I was seeing a shape, or an outline, on a field of pale, white, nothing, whatever. A grey, sparkling, serrated, pebbled…a suggestion of a… the indication of the presence of a… a curtain of potential shimmering around some… some unnameable, unfindable…

I contemplated this, or anything but this, or something, for a time before becoming aware of anything else. Hermione was talking, but I was not anywhere near what she was saying, and something felt like I couldn't be, yet, and maybe what I had been seeing before was just anything but anything. I contented myself with watching Ginny get madder and madder. It was really something. I couldn't get enough of it. Her eyes grew darker and she frowned in a way that made me want to spread myself on her palm like Nutella, and if you, my patient reader, find yourself not knowing what that is, I suggest you put this down and go get some, spread it on something, eat it and contemplate that process from the Nutella's point of view.

Of course I had the usual moment of wondering where my memory of Nutella came from. But it didn't last.

"I couldn't know," I said. Pretty much to myself, I mean - Ginny didn't even hear me.

"So instead of calling the healer who is actually on the premises," she was saying to Hermione, "and knows him better than anyone else, you go all the way to bloody Hogwarts?"

Hermione chose her words like a crane chooses where to step. "It was just that you were a bit… well, you seemed like you needed your space…"

Ginny closed her eyes and took a breath, and when she spoke again she was bitter. "Yes, and that's just what I need, for more people to leave me alone."

Her friend gathered herself. "You make it a bit difficult not to when you go off by yourself and sulk for hours at a time."

Confronted with Hermione's newly revealed spine, which might ordinarily have placed Ginny behind her but not in a world where I supply the imagery, Ginny looked a little stricken.

"Hey, it's -" I said.

"You're right, Hermione," she said. I may as well have been talking to myself. "I said I'd look after him, but I've let… things get in the way of that. I know I'm failing him."

"Wait, you're not -" I said.

"Ginny, I seem to recall you recusing yourself from caring for Mr. Potter," Poppy said, thus proving that I could be ignored by more than one person at a time.

Ginny appeared to consider that statement longer than I thought was necessary.

"I did, but that's no excuse for being unavailable to someone in need," Ginny said.

Right now, all of a sudden, _I_ needed to go to the bathroom.

"A Healer can not be expected to perform at her best if she allows her emotions to affect her caregiving," Poppy said, and I felt the subtle pressure behind her words, "as I believe we have spoken about in the past."

"I know, Madam Pomfrey," she said, "but I've brought him back before, and I know how, and you _knew_ that," she said, looking back to Hermione with a small bit of her ire returning.

Hermione said, "He didn't want to return until he thought of you."

I was not the only one capable of silencing people. That stricken look returned to Ginny's face. I, for my part, was stricken by a need of increasing urgency. Yack, yack, yack. Couldn't these people get this done so I could -

"In point of fact," Hermione said, "he had quite a _strong_ reaction to thinking about you."

That was my cue to see if Davy Crockett was still pitching his tent. Happily, he had mostly broken down the campsite. This meant I could maybe stop Hermione from giving me grief. I'd say something smart and funny and disarming, and everyone would laugh and we'd move on, and in particular I'd move on to the loo.

However, "That's not important to her" is what I said.

Hermione and Ginny turned to look at me, both looking surprised.

"I mean…" Ginny's eyes took the light from the windows and made it that smoky silver. The details. The line between her brows, her lips parted with hurt that I didn't understand but wanted to stop, her cheeks that made me feel lonely, remembering their softness from somewhere indeterminate but crucial. "That's not important _now_. What's important is I don't know where I've been or what's been happening and this talking isn't… I mean I'm _right here_, and nobody's listening but Poppy. Now I know you two would love to sit here chatting but I have a _very_ pressing need to use the loo so if you don't mi_OH_ _boy_ what on earth was, uh… yeah."

Poppy had waved her wand at me and after an alien and yet not altogether unpleasant feeling I'd been relieved of my pressing need, in a way that to my intestines felt like a stick of gum being sort of kindly chewed.

"All better, Harry?" she said.

"Warn a guy," I said.

Ginny came forward into my vicinity in a way that made my skin sing with electricity.

"You remember me first," she said, with a suggestion of impatience, from a very short distance away, close enough to see the tiny striations in the irises of her brown eyes as she bent over me. They made me think of how things are made of other, smaller things, and you have to know each smaller thing to understand the larger thing, and I didn't know what those bundles were called so I didn't feel like I could know her entirely but I'd look it up in Sirius' library as soon as I could because I didn't like being unprepared –

"I can hear you doing that," she said.

"Oh," I said.

"You're babbling inside."

"Yes, well, I do… do that."

"You remember me first," she said, reining me in.

"Yes."

"Not Mum or Dad, the ones you knew longest. Not _your_ mum or dad. Not Sirius. Me."

"Yes." Looking her in the eye but not listening. Not listening at all.

"Even though I turned my back on you? Even after everything I've said?"

Nod and say yes. Nod and say yes. "Actually," I found myself saying, "I don't remember any of that."

Her eyes closed, long enough for her to have a private moment, just for herself, in which she could have the space to say something simple, like, for example, "Bollocks."

And she did, out loud.

"It doesn't matter to me," I said.

She opened her eyes again, and from six inches away, she managed to mostly avoid my gaze.

"I don't care what you said. I care that you're right here in front of me."

"Wh…" She paused. Hermione and Poppy were only a few feet away, so it was curious to me that she leaned a little closer to me and lowered her voice, as if it would do any good. Her tone was plaintive. _"Why?"_

"Why don't I care what you said, or why do I care that you're in front of me?"

I clearly had said that too loudly for Ginny's comfort. She closed her eyes again for a moment, suppressing something. Either she did that a lot, or I made her do that a lot. The other two women seemed to recede for a moment, and I wondered at the power this beauty had over me to make others appear to grow smaller in her presence, and then I realized it was because they were backing away to give us some room, and I thought to myself, it's what we think other people can do to us that's vastly more important to us, even if it's kind of an illusion. It's like a movie we make for ourselves, life is, a fictionalized documentary of the world, shot every moment, and even though the world already has characters and scenery, we tend to see them at one remove even if we don't think we do, and rewrite them according to how we want them or need them or feel that they should be even if we don't like them that way. But I wrote her strong and beautiful, because that's her through and through.

Her eyes had been open for a bit, I guess. She shook herself and said, "Both of those."

It took me a moment to remember what the things of which there were two and of which she'd spoken might have been, during which I might have wondered at how precious few things passed through my mind that weren't headache-inducingly hard to describe without abusing my native language. I briefly imagined only explaining things to people in Tagalog, so that I wouldn't feel so badly about saying things badly because I don't actually _know_ Tagalog.

"I don't care what you said," I said in English, sitting up a bit, "because I don't know what you said. I don't remember it. As far as I'm concerned…" I thought about it. What I was saying surprised me. Memory was precious. Sometimes. "As far as I'm concerned, it didn't happen on my watch. As far as why I care that you're in front of me…" Some more reflection. "I like you there."

She pressed her lips together, irritated. Irked, even. Mad and frustrated. Beautiful.

"You don't even remember," she said, though it felt like she was saying it to herself. "You don't remember and you don't care, it doesn't matter to you." She took a deep breath, and I had no idea what was going to come out of her mouth.

"All right then, off with you two," she said, not taking her eyes off of something over my head somewhere, which was clearly fascinating.

After a pause, Hermione said, "Do you mean us?"

"I do."

"Right…well," Poppy said, gathering something up, "we'll just be outside, then, shall we?"

After another pause that was ended with a rustle of cloth and a yelp from Hermione, the two other women left.

"I can't." She spoke the fact.

I didn't know what the fact was. I hoped she was getting around to telling me.

"You just sit there, looking up at me like you do, like…_only_…you do, and it's okay with you that you don't know what happened before, or what I said or…did, because you just want me. Here. You want me here in front of you." Her cheeks colored as she went on. "Memory is the most precious thing to you, you're haunted by incomplete or missing memory, and all you want is to be able to know your own past, and yet you're willing to throw that out just so Ginny can sit next to you in the living room. I mean, what sort of stupid berk would let this happen?"

Maybe I _was_ being stupid.

"Well, I'm _not_," she said. "I may be stupid, but I'm not going to let this happen. I'm not going to let you do this. Not for me."

So now I was definitely feeling a bit stupid. I was fairly sure now that I had no idea what she was talking about.

She looked at me for a moment. "Deasil, I'm not calling _you_ stupid or a berk. It's me. On the one hand, I'm stupid because I'd let you think I was something I'm not, and on the other hand, I'm stupid for not going along with your wishes, but I can't let you think that I'm some… well, that I deserve your good will."

"Ginny, that's not -"

"So I'm going to do what you've been asking me to do."

"Wait, you don't have to, I mean, what have I been –"

"I'm going to show you what happened to your day."

''But how are you going to? Do you have a pensive?"

"'Pensieve'. No." She swallowed. "I'm going to look you in the eye."

Well. On my one hand I felt like I was being dipped in warm cream, in the sense that it sounded nice but made me a little uncomfortable. On my other hand, I was kind of a little scared for her.

"You don't want to do it," she said abruptly. "I suppose I can't blame you. After all the trouble I've –"

"Wait a minute, slow down," I said, talking over her. "I just can't see why you'd be willing to, that's all. Why now?"

"Why now, when I was so scared of it before, is that what you mean?"

"Kind of, yeah."

"The same reason."

"You're doing it _because_ you're scared of it?"

"Are you going to throw away this golden opportunity or are you going to shut up?"

"I'll shut up in a minute. You need to make more sense to me." That was a large understatement.

"Can't you just…" She gestured in a vague circle. "…_look_ in there and see what you need to know?"

"Not against your will," I said.

"You can't do it against my will?"

"I won't," I said.

She was about to reply, I could tell, because she was in the rhythm of this interplay and what would have been great just then was some kind of witty and yet cutting remark, something to keep her feeling strong, but then she just kind of dropped it. Also the room was fairly well lit by now.

"I know that," she said, looking up at me. I could have looked at her all day.

"I _know_!" She was shouting a bit. "How much of an _idiot_ do I have to _be_?"

"Idiot how?"

"Has anyone noticed that glow doesn't actually come from anywhere?"

"…Idiot…how?"

"I know you won't do anything wrong, I know you won't take anything from me, I know you would protect me even from yourself -" There was something tickling my memory about that. Wasn't sure what. " – I know I have nothing to fear at all."

"Yes."

"That's bloody terrifying."

"Ah."

"But I don't run away from things. I'm a big girl. I'm not afraid of anything or anybody."

"Yes."

"Except this and you. So let's get to it."

•

What is hard to describe is: what things look like from someone else's point of view and the way they link with your own but from the wrong angles, and how the links themselves are tenuous because you can't even remember your point of view, and how what drags it out and returns it to you is something that looks like it but from somewhere else, and you can't really own the memory since it isn't yours until it sort of snaps from the other person's vantage point back into yours, and "snaps" is a good word because it implies a little pain, maybe, like a rubber band on the back of your hand to remind you to not smoke a cigarette or something, so it's like a period of looking over someone's shoulder followed by a bent-tree-branch-slapback rush and then a wobble, and then you know where you were and what you were doing.

What's also difficult to describe is the feeling of being admitted. In the sense that she allowed me to do what came naturally to me and hear and see her. Also, simply, in the sense that my being was acknowledged by her again, that there was a purpose for me being here, that there was something to this situation, our being concerned with each other. She wasn't acting as if I were not here, or avoiding me, or yelling at me and storming away, like the last thing I could kind of remember, which was in the pub after the whole running-from-Dumbledore-and-experiencing-Tom-in-aerosol-form thing. I knew that things had happened after that, and had a bit of apprehension about what they might be, but the main thing now was the admitting.

She admitted me to herself, and she admitted _to _me to herself. At least, I hoped for this, fervently.

Because something needed to be worth the completely unsettling feeling I was having right at that moment. It started fine, with her pale hand on my arm as I sat by her, looking into her eyes. It was a banquet for a starving man, and satisfying, though it would never be (I guessed as her pupils expanded subtly) enough. But what followed was a jarring, lurching pull, the kind of action that one does to get something over with quickly, like cannon-balling into a cold lake, and then there _you_ _are_.

_You are at the long dining table, sitting by yourself, drawn in silhouette. The light comes from the kitchen's faint nighttime lumos. You look small for a bloke of a bit under six foot tall, because of how you are holding yourself. Your shoulders slope. Your face is near parallel to the table. _

_I don't make any noise coming in. Passing behind you on the way to the kitchen. Your hair a little unruly as if from sleep, though that's how it is most of the time. The chair's rounded back, surrounding you a little. A mug of tea near your hand, untouched, no steam rising. Your shirt looks soft. Then the other end of the table, then the doorway, _and then I became aware of her as she walked a little quickly into the next room and some light spell flared and settled into a dull wolfram glow. That brittle element, like her, incandescent without burning.

Now I was remembering.

I remembered feeling awkward at the table, where I'd landed some time earlier that night due to insomnia. It felt very much like my parents' house and not mine, hearing her moving quietly in the kitchen. That she probably needed this time and these empty rooms more than I. Most likely she was accustomed to the stillness, and needed it. She'd been here all along. Maybe I needed to find my own place for that. Maybe I needed to take my clumsy stupid self back to New York so she wouldn't have me stumbling all over her. I found myself getting up, pressing the table surface with my hands, wanting to retreat.

She appeared in the doorway, and I could no more run out of there than stop breathing.

(Stop breathing. Someone else, on her face on the ground, no, it was a man, with long silver hair. Not yet. Soon. Can't see this now. Was I remembering this now, or seeing it then? Couldn't tell.)

_You look beaten, _her memory persisted,_ holding yourself up with the table. I've disturbed you. Chasing you out. I'm the last person you want to see now, in your old home, haunting you like a ghost. I can't find words. I hate my silence. You open your mouth, and I watch you waiting to speak. Then you cough and say "I'm sorry – I was wrong" and look down again. Your arms, your shoulders, bent under all this. All I can make myself say is "I know you're sorry," and I expel a little breath, and I shake my head at myself. What I do when I'm like this. I say, "You're a git like my brothers," each word a stone clinking against the next. You look up at me and catch me. Green eyes clear and the weight behind them. I'm held in them and I see you, your revulsion, at me? No, at Tom, at his vile and defiling presence. Your desire to shed your skin, violently if need be, anywhere he has touched._

"_I know, Deasil." I can't continue this. "I _know_," I say, and I want to show you that I understand, like no one else can, and yet I cannot open my mouth again. You want to get the stench of Tom off of you, and it comes from me as much as anywhere else. I need to get away, to wash off. Why my hand is reaching for you, behind your back as I pass you on the way out, I don't want to know. _

_Your form arches, slightly, as if you know I'm close. I want. To leave. Door. Cabinet, rug, stairs. Room. Dark._

My body shouted at her absence. I remember that clearly.

•

_You are back at the table – it's as if you never left, though you have managed to change clothes. It's morning. Lily is sitting near you, holding the baby. The way she's not looking at me is a clear rebuke. You're her son, and I'm forgetting everything she's ever taught me. My mother is piling food on the table, her way of making things normal, and my father and your father are talking, their low voices warm and indistinct. I walk past Mum and go to the kitchen to find my mug, near the sink on a shelf that's not too high. Chipped on the rim in one spot, so I always hold it the same way. I could have fixed it ages ago, but I never have. I pour tea from the pot and warm it. When I walk back into the room it's like I'm seeing two aspects of the same thing – the baby peers sleepily over Lily's shoulder at me, and on the opposite side of the table you are looking at me, rueful and so sorry, so unbearably sorry. And so beautiful. I don't know how much of this I can take. It's old, and pathetically comfortable, and usual, and wrong. I just want my cup, and my place, and to be able to hide from myself by being normal, but when I see you I can't lie. Of course I'm of two minds about this. I want to be released by you. Yes, as I feel a pang of longing, remembering you kissing me, I want release. But every wish I have has its abiding shadow, the same one I've had since my first year at school, and this one resents you for permeating everything, the cup, the table, my home, the future, blocking my escape. You won't let me lie, so I won't let you see me. I need these old things. I have work to do. No one can take my life away from me again. I won't allow it. _

_My mother moves past me, telling me I look pale, and I realize I've been standing here all this time, and you haven't taken your eyes off of me, your eyes. I have to move, and so I do._

Right. She went and sat at the end of the table. It looked somehow too large for her, and her shape seemed unusually small. It made me think suddenly of her father, when his body was still bent with enchantment and the burden of carrying the mind of his wife, and then later, when we were standing together watching Molly doze in the hospital after she'd returned to herself, and his voice had been soft and thoughtful as he said to me, "I'm not used to sleeping alone."

She pulled out her wand and waved it, speaking the word _"accio"_ softly, and a few moments later a small backpack came arcing through the door behind her, to land in her arms. She drew out a book and a roll of parchment that together were a little too large for the backpack, and with motions that bespoke a degree of resignation she opened the book and began to flip through it.

"You really are looking a bit peaky," Molly said to her without looking. "Are you still out flying about all night?"

Well, _I_ thought that was a secret. Ginny did too, as evidenced by her open mouth.

"Flying about," my mother said.

"No," Ginny said, and paused. "I came down for a snack at about one."

"Why?" I said, my voice low for her, under Molly and my mother talking.

"I couldn't sleep," she said, also softly.

"I couldn't either."

"You weren't at your window," she said, almost accusing.

I felt breath leaving me. She'd been there.

"I was – my mind was on some things," I said.

The funny thing was, I couldn't remember what the things were that my mind was on. I couldn't quite extrapolate that from Ginny's memory.

"Was it," she said, her voice harsh and flat as static.

"Was what?" Ten points? For her, any time.

"It. Was your mind on – never mind." She tilted her book up between us, saying to herself, "Ruin a perfectly good snark. Bloody hopeless."

You know, you want to be angry, or hurt - I found I was saying to myself – and yet you really sort of like the edge in her voice. The ire. This thing you are in that surrounds you and that you are, that makes you enjoy even her insults - what is this thing, and why is it always so well-lit?

She abruptly turned away from me, and I was bothered about it until I realized that she was just using that glow to read by.

"What the bloody hell was that?" my father said.

"Get used to it," Ginny said. "It's like a bloody nightclub around him."

"And you've been to a few of those, then?" Molly's voice, both humorous and sharp.

"A fair few, and none of them like that," Ginny said. I imagined that her strategy was to counter brazenly and redirect. It seemed like a good idea. Why wasn't I mad at her?

"How could she go to nightclubs without your knowing?" Molly said to the room.

It was really quiet in there for a bit.

Finally my mother said, "That's what I'd like to know."

"She snuck," I said.

"What?"

I was breaking even. "She snuck out when you weren't paying attention."

"Is that even a word?" my father said.

"What's wrong with it? It's perfectly serviceable. I sneak out today like I snuck out yesterday."

"Seems to me that 'snack' would work better somehow," Arthur said, "and yet, perhaps, not…not really."

"Or 'snake'," I said.

Ginny's head was in her hands.

"'I snake out yesterday'?" my father said.

"No, that's not working at all," Arthur said.

"Had snaken?" I said.

"Snicken," my father said.

"The menfolk in this family," my mother said to the baby, "have really gone to the dogs. At least I have one more chance with you. Do try not to be an idiot, any worse than your gender has predetermined you to be. The first sign of blithering that I see and it's off to an all-girls' school with you."

"He might appear a little butch in the uniform," my father said.

"Might have a bit of a smile on his face when he left," Arthur said.

"Perhaps he could get a little coaching in how to walk in heels?" I said.

"I shall tell him all I know," Arthur said.

"Maybe we should get a second opinion," I said.

If you've never been party to good-natured male laughter, let's say that it's the sort of thing that makes you feel very manly, if you happen to be a man. You're part of a tribe, and you are not called into question. There's no weak link in the chain. You feel on some level that you could go out and fight the slavering hordes and these fellows would be right there at your side. It also makes you forget things for a moment. I wasn't sure, here in the present, what I was forgetting, but it seemed like a good thing to forget about.

When I looked over, though, Ginny was gone.

•

_The sunlight is hateful. _

I'd never felt that way before.

_It prods into the creases of my bent arms, forces its way through my hair to my face. Burns the skin on my back through my shirt. Invasive. I don't want it on me. It's like loud music, shouting its will at me. The shrill, deafening sun. I'm a load of laughs today. Beautiful sodding weather gets me down. Just makes me feel more separate. And it digs up what little color I have in my skin in the form of freckles, my little hereditary gift. Like being covered in useless punctuation. A flash of memory, George teasing me about getting my period and Fred saying I'd had them for ages, and then after my first year, when I referred to them as little Dark Marks and even the twins shut up after that._

_You have come out to the back garden with Sirius. I'd come out here to escape the laughter, which was largely harsh and oppressive to my ears, except for yours, which was even worse in that it made me wish I could be anyone but myself so that I could enjoy it. I wonder as I have many times before if during my blackouts of possession that Tom had somehow damaged my nerves, or at the least my ability to feel things like other people, and in a way it seems like such a stupid question. Of course I will never feel things like other people. And I will always feel things that other people will never understand._

_Maybe Sirius knows about that a bit, having been somewhere other people can't imagine and somehow survived it. Maybe he does, but he doesn't understand what it is to have your mind repeatedly penetrated against your will until you have nothing left to fight with. I'm so tired of thinking about this. Over and over, every day. And you make it worse. To feel the difference between what I want and what I am allowed to have, between who I wish I could be and who, inevitably, I find myself being._

_As the two of you approach my spot under the large hornbeam, I try to give you a baleful look, but the sun is too bright to do so effectively, and you ignore it. Sirius' face is still - as it always is - but yours is budding with a suggestion of a smile. _

"_It's lovely out here," you say, looking right at me. I'm pierced by you, effortlessly, which, like the sun, is hateful. _

"_Too lovely," I say, and I gather my things and make a show of moving somewhere else._

_I hear Sirius saying "What's wrong with her?" and you saying, "Just choking on a sunbeam."_

Oh, yeah. That was pithy of me. Then she walked towards the pasture, her hair somehow darker in the glare, and after a few moments she was gone between the trees, a blue figure of afterimage hanging in my vision.

"She's giving you a bit of grief," he said.

"She has her reasons," I said. "And whatever I think I've done to deserve it, she'll probably have reasons of her own that are either funnier or somehow more wretched than anything I could have thought of."

I couldn't help thinking then that there were things she could be even more furious about if she'd known about them, but I couldn't, now, in remembering with Ginny, think of what they might be.

"People don't say what's on their minds," he said. "Small things. Wasting…"

"People do what they can with what they have. It's necessary, this…" I gestured between myself and where she'd gone. "I may not understand it, but it needs being. The grief stuff is a small thing, it's just a moment, and here we are."

He was silent. Because his voice was still sheathed in a rasp from what I'd come to understand were hours of alternately screaming and howling, when he stopped talking it was like when the air conditioner goes off – the quiet was a little jarring.

"Besides," I said, "as she well knows, her not talking gives me time to think of other things I may have done wrong. It kind of lightens her load."

"You have a toothy inwit that bites both ways, Deasil."

And I said, "Yeah?"

And he said, "When you look at yourself, you."

He was doing that record-stop thing again. Until he started talking, it was like he'd turned to stone. "You reveal things about other people as well."

I said, "Uh."

Being with Sirius was good for something that ailed me, though I wasn't sure what it was, then or now. He'd shown up at the table after Ginny left, looking, if not exactly bashful, as though he had not been invited and was thinking if nobody asked he'd get through breakfast before it was discovered he didn't belong there, except he actually did belong there because my father had told him earlier that it was his home too and outside of any need for solitude that he should be here often, among people who, though criminally slow on the uptake, wanted him around always.

I might have said that he hoped he wouldn't be noticed at the table, but I couldn't imagine him hoping.

"Azkaban," Sirius said, apropos of nothing, "was a kind of taghairm."

I didn't say anything, because he didn't talk about prison much. I knew what a taghairm was, but I had no idea how.

"I was sealed in a small room, so there was no escape. Dementors would wander down the halls, stopping in front of a cell and drawing their sustenance through the same rusty grate we were fed through. You couldn't." He paused. "You couldn't get away, and they would pull out the worst memories and fears you could imagine. I thought changing into a dog would help at first, but it only simplified things."

Standing there in the sun, flooded with light, he still managed to do this: exhaling and having it sound more like tires on wet pavement, receding. Like I'd never see that car again. And it seemed a bit much, thinking that of each breath, an endless succession of sighing cars passing and gone, but the man had a bit of a dark side.

"After a while, you would be able to watch it happen to you." He looked out over the garden and the lawn, his eyes giving no indication of seeing anything. "There are so many things that happen, things you do. So much regret. Little…cruelties. Anger, and hatred, that seem so."

I waited.

"Small."

Yeah.

"I'd always felt more free as a dog. But that time made me feel like I was just wrapped in a loose dog hide. It didn't save me from anything. I could see all of the things I'd done. The. The truth." His feet made some dry noise against a stone. "Before, I could be a dog and act as if there were no world but what was before me. The moonlight. Scents. Hunting. But that," he said in a flat tone like a crude cave drawing of derision, "came to an end in prison. All these small things we think. They were revealed to me in my dogskin, things that seemed important but in the end are worthless. Petty." He expelled the last word, and it flashed in my mind like a wet nickel. "As I was inside Azkaban."

"Just because you were in there made you worthless? You weren't even guilty of anything."

"When you're trapped in a prison with Dementors all around you every day, you." A moment for the cause. "You'll find that you're guilty of _something._"

"What happened?"

"I felt myself coming away. Coming loose. From the days, from wishes, people, myself. And I can't go back and change that. I know things that other people can't. Explaining it is useless. I don't."

A bit of silence.

"Belong."

He looked up at me a little sharply after I spoke. The weight of his look didn't last, and he nodded his head after looking down.

I guessed he wasn't used to people finishing his sentences.

Much less accurately.

"That's one for you, Deasil," he said.

"I usually go by tens," I said.

"Cheater," he said.

It was almost a joke. I gave it some silence to frame it.

"I learned what was important in there," he said. "And what was without use. But I also learned something else about myself after I was out. In spite of what I knew, and what had been flayed from my body and mind in prison, I was unable to live as I knew life was." He held a stick in his hands and looked at it, and I wondered if he were going to break it, but he finally dropped it in front of him. "And the dementors."

Moment.

"The dementors had pulled out of me by force what I wouldn't admit to myself. Showed me how weak I was. How much I liked to fool myself. And now that I'm outside, I can't seem to look away from anything. I can't stop thinking about James in the courtroom. He knows he was scared, and I know that we were all fooled by Peter. But I still."

Moment.

"I still haven't managed to stop being angry for what happened," he said.

"You're like everyone else in this one respect."

"What would that be?"

"You're doing your best with what you have."

"I was right to." Another pause. "Think of you."

"We're supposed to be friends," I said. "You caught me."

"That I did," he said. "You remember that?"

"It happened before I started getting distracted every day."

He was quiet. But it was a nice shirt he was wearing.

•

_I've been reading a book about spell damage but not taking any of the words in. The periphery of my vision is burned dark around the page by the sun. It's too hot and I'm punishing myself out here, shade or not, and all I want is to go inside, drink something cold and curl up. But it doesn't feel like my house so much anymore. Lily has been like my mother, but she's angry with me, and now my real mother is here but all she can think of is what mischief I'd got up to while she was gone. As if I were eight years old again. A part of her is still back in a time she wasn't here for. For my part, a hidden little girl that I barely recognize wants that time, and yet the person that I've become knows that there is no returning there. _

_And then, of course, there you are. Inevitably in the middle of all that, the wish to be with you. You don't think I'm stupid, you don't think I need you to protect me, you don't judge me for my idiocy concerning Tom – in fact, you know what it's like to have him in your head – and you have strong hands, and you…I'm not thinking about this right now, and anyway the reason it doesn't feel like home anymore is that you are here. It was safe before you returned. The thought is a lie, but it gets me up on my feet. _

_As I stand, I hear Sirius on the other side of the tree saying something about you needing a bit of houghmagandy, whatever that may be. You say that you don't think you could do that, and after a pause he says that maybe he doesn't think he could either. He says maybe he just wants to do something, to feel useful. He says his spellcasting is worthless. You ask him if he wants to do some practice with Ron. I want to be involved, can't be, miserable, resentful, helpless. I know you have to learn things, and not just to get by in the world and know how to use a floo or summon water on a day like this, but because some spindly fish-eyed hag saw that you have to kill Tom or be killed by him. I hate this collision, you and a stupid prophecy, you and Tom, with a roiling revulsion that surprises me. He touches everything, eventually. Every boy I ever dated, whether dangerous or kind, always ended up feeling to me like they were just beyond my reach, or that I was just beyond theirs. They couldn't understand, and they couldn't make him go away. In my secret heart, after a while, they wound up being boring to me, because there was nothing at stake, and because in a way that fuels my disgust with myself, maybe they simply weren't as compelling as a sociopath who made me believe his lies, who made me lie down in a damp stone chamber underground, so that I could die and he would live. When someone shows a girl that she's worth nothing and she believes it, even agrees – I suppose that's a hard act to follow. As you would say. Bloody hell, you two divide me down the middle. And if I were somehow able to remove you two, I don't know what would be left._

Well. I didn't know it was like that.

And I wondered why her memory was so bookish.

And I remembered something that happened before that, kind of, something about no one understanding Sirius and how he had to talk about things, that it helped even though it was hard to, and that my mother was a good listener. And something about how people take on shapes they didn't have before sometimes, when you're in prison, and become part of your life in imaginary ways, wishful ways, and how they grow and change as if they were real and there with you, but you have to remind yourself when you come out of prison that it wasn't really the person, just their image that…something, I can't remember. But a minute later I do remember that he stopped walking and spoke.

"Here. This." He took a small hand mirror from a pocket and placed it in my hand, though he didn't touch me in doing so.

"Do I have something in my teeth?"

Jokes passed by him like wind by a statue.

"It has a companion mirror," he said. It was framed in smooth black wood, with a handle of a little more than a palm's width. There was a simple "P" carved into the back. I wondered if he was going to give me this one and then set me a task to get the other one. That seemed unlike him. I was clearly not getting something and, in a rare instance for me when not knowing what was going on, I was quiet. I suppose that was how he was good for me.

"You hold one and speak the name of the other person holding one, and if they have theirs, they will appear in it and you can."

The clouds blossomed slowly overhead.

"Talk to them."

This meant so much, coming from this quiet, damaged man.

"Will you call me on it?" I said.

Leaves rustled from the wind. I heard a small animal's motion in the grass.

"Some time," he said.

I let it drop. Clearly the man had a bit of an influence on me. "It's time for lunch," I said. "Do you want a sandwich?"

"All right then," he said.

"After that I'm studying magic with Tonks and Remus – do you want to-"

"No," he said. After a pause he went on. "I don't think I can. Be around Remus right now."

"You feel like he left you in there."

He looked at me, sharply, briefly, as we walked back to the house. "He did."

"He didn't come to see you, or let you know he thought you were innocent."

"I got nothing from him."

"You know he hates himself, right?"

"I haven't forgotten what he's like."

"No, I mean - You used to run with him when you were younger?"

"I learned to be a dog so I could stay with him. The same as your father."

"Dad is a stag. I've never seen him do it, but that's what he said. But you were another canine, another predator."

This was where someone else might have said, "Hm." He was silent.

"You were more like Remus, like a reflection of him. Sirius, he was completely wrong to abandon you. No question about that. But if you already believe the world is painful and against you, and then your best friend, your double, seems to turn dark and goes to prison-"

A breath came from him – a hard-edged sound of disbelief.

I stopped talking.

"I can't decide if you're too kind or too perceptive," he said.

I had no idea, and said so.

"Not important," he said as we reached the door. I figured I was out of the woods, because his eyebrows agreed with me. In the sense that they looked good. Well-groomed with a suggestion of wildness. He was clearly trying to look like the wealthy guy he was. Stepping back into his life that was supposed to belong to him. Another thing we had in common.

•

_Leaves whip my ankles. The broom's dark grain is broad and worn, pressing on my palms, imprinting them like whorls on a willow's finger. I hold the broom and the broom holds me. To dart forward, to lunge, is what a person does when they have only just learned to ride – a quick thrill, but unsubtle – but to rise over treetops, to hold steady amid the swaying and the rustle, to find the right moment to move, and then flash between branches leaving nothing behind… it's a thing it took me years to find patience for. I had been a chaser, as aggressive a flier as I could be, all elbows and arrow-straight, until I saw my first thestral and, fresh from the events that made it visible, I wanted to just fly, and the gaunt broken-mirror reflection of a horse had the way of it. I see you leave the house in the distance, followed by Remus and Tonks, and I think of how hungry I am, but even now I can't quite go back inside. You are looking for me, I think, in the grass or in the shade, but you don't think to look up, and I pull the handle towards me, turn to my left side and plunge into the canopy of green, ignoring the little tugs and scrapes, falling away from you, but it's my fall, under control._

Wait a minute, I remember this one, I thought. We were walking outside, and I had something in my hand. The mirror. The one Sirius gave me. We'd been sitting at the dining table, with the mirrors out, as he'd showed me how they worked, which was pretty simple actually. I say his name, and on his end, the mirror rattles a little, and he picks it up. I'd been thinking that if a cell phone company had got hold of these they would rule the world, and said so, but then Sirius had told me that no one who wasn't magical could see it work, and I wondered why that was. When we'd been in the movie theater and things hadn't been right-seeming to me – I felt like these two things were connected, but had no idea why. Anyway, I'd held both mirrors in my hands and was looking at the sleepy beveled oval shape of their frames, an easy arc that was kind of like a little bit of music that you might hear from a door down the hall that was momentarily open, or maybe like a mouth opened in surprise, and then I'd heard a startled exclamation from Charlie as he came in the room looking for my father. He was in a little bit of a mood, and he'd groused at my father about the house being so far away from any city of any size, much less London, and how people were getting killed at night (actually I think he said "nocturnally", which seemed rather prosaic) and having their bits chopped off, even if they were bastards, and clearly something was beginning, and we couldn't do anything about it from here, living in this rat-infested country house, and my father said that the house wasn't rat-_infested_, and it was the bloody country after all, there were bound to be animals about, and Charlie said he was always seeing them, and my father asked him if he'd forgotten all of his household charms or if he were just waiting for someone to do something _for_ him, and Charlie gained a bit of color in his cheeks and said he could do perfectly well for himself, and he left.

My father never greeted Sirius. They would just start talking around each other. I'd thought it was odd at first, but as I saw it happen repeatedly I realized a few things – that there were so many things that would remain unspoken between them, and apparently one of those things was "hello", and that in a way it was my father saying, "you're always with us, you belong here, you're already here." He had a way of doing things like that – making situations that communicated, instead of words, sometimes.

"Pulling on his tether," he said.

"He'll break it," Sirius said.

"Yes," my father said.

I sat and looked at the two of them for a moment.

"There was a killing last night," my father said, "just off Diagon Alley – do you remember where that is, son?" I nodded, stiffly, for a reason I couldn't quite place. He went on to say the name of some guy that seemed familiar in this memory in some unreachable way, and said he was not a good man, and that his past acts had perhaps caught up with him. Sirius made a sharp hoarse sound and said that it should have happened sooner to the murdering bastard, and my father said that it would have spared a lot of people a lot of hurt, including Ginny.

I must have had a dark expression on my face. My father's was sympathetic. He said, "Some people turn up dead because of who they are."

"Do you think…" I was having a little trouble saying this, though I couldn't say for sure, watching the memory, why that would be. And, you know, telling this story with a spotty memory is hard enough without _recalling _a poor memory of something I didn't understand at the time but do now though I'm not saying what it is because the story needs to be told in some kind of an order and it wouldn't do to say, "Okay, page one, the end. Now, page two." Though I think I've done that before, but I've forgotten about it. Anyway, back to when I didn't know yet what I had previously known but know now, though I have to tell this as though I don't know.

"Do _you_ think he deserved it?"

He thought for a moment. "Well, son, it's hard to say without knowing what he was doing or thinking when he died…but I think the point is that things have clearly gone off the rails for you if you wind up dead and …dismembered in an alley, whether you're good or, in Lucius' case, a bit of a bastard. Maybe there was something he could have done not to be on that path, and it seems that there would be, considering his wealth and influence. He might have stayed home with his family and had a nice cup of tea instead of going into that place." He ran his fingers through his hair, something I realized that I did as well. "In the end," he said, "a rich man known for cruelty and killing, even if unproven to the Ministry, dying in a crime-filled street with his wand out fresh from casting a Petrificus spell, which has no benevolent use as far as I know, does not seem very hard to understand."

I felt an inexplicable relief.

Ginny hadn't been around, so I couldn't remember anything else that happened for a moment, but then something tugged at me and I remembered Remus and Tonks walking in, at which point Sirius got up slowly and left the room, like smoke blowing away. We were all quiet for a minute, then we all went into the kitchen for something, probably a drink, and when we went back through the dining room to leave, I remembered I'd left the mirror sitting there and I picked it up, admiring its form again as I went out with Remus and Tonks, and so there we were. I remember turning it in my hand as we went out to a bit of open ground, and thinking that I was glad Sirius had remembered to come back and pick his up from where it had sat next to mine. Part of me wanted to call him on it already. I thought about it for a moment before I turned my raggedy focus towards the werewolf and the shapeshifter.

We talked about shields and what they are supposed to do, and I asked a lot of questions about why if you could prevent one kind of magic, then why not another, and Tonks stumbled along a bit trying to explain before elbowing Remus rather hard, which ended his increasingly smug expression. With a sharp look at her, he said, "Deasil, some curses are so powerful that there can be no shield from them. In the same way that diamonds are harder than wood, the killing curse is more powerful than any protego."

"So it's a question of degree," I said.

"Yes."

"But every spell or curse or whatever is all made of the same magic, though, right?"

"No," he said, coming to a stop. "Some magic is light and some is dark."

"Really?" I said.

He paused. "Yes, really."

"What – good magic and bad?"

He nodded.

"But can't you use magic for any purpose? Isn't that up to you?"

"Some spells, such as the killing curse, have no good use."

"None at all?"

"Can you think of one?" he said, a little impatient.

"What if I'm in terrible pain from a mortal wound and want to die?"

"Couldn't you be put to sleep instead, so that you could die painlessly?"

"Does the killing curse hurt?"

"How can we know that?"

"Do you have to be, I don't know, evil with a capital E to use it?"

"Doesn't it appear that way?"

"Do you know one way or another?"

"Do either of you," Tonks said, "know how to answer a question?"

Remus sighed. "Deasil, you didn't grow up around magical culture, so it makes sense that you wouldn't understand what the killing curse is to us."

"I think I do. It's a club versus a stick."

"Erm…"

"You never hear anyone say 'That guy got killed with a stick.' It's 'Someone killed him with a club.' He still got hit with a piece of wood. You could chop down the same tree and make a tennis racket or a pool cue or a club, or a shield that blocks clubs. So what's the difference between light and dark magic? Does one hurt and the other doesn't, or does one give you cancer, or what?"

He had a slightly pained expression on his face as he considered his answer. "It comes down to intent."

"So if it's all the same magic, then why doesn't someone make, like, a killing shield?"

"It's not that simple."

"Why not?"

He slid his hand through his hair, thinning and the color of his robe, more or less. Tonks was seemingly torn between amusement and curiosity.

Finally he said, "You've asked me questions I don't know how to answer. Maybe shields are not what we need to think about today. Why don't we concentrate on transfiguration?"

Tonks looked disappointed. "Bloody _hate _transfiguration," she said to herself.

"Not surprising, Dora," he said, "given that you can change your own form at will – it must seem boring."

"It's not that," she said, idly swinging an arm around. "It's just easier to make something look like something else."

"Yeah, that," I said, "how do we do that?"

"You mean an illusion?" Remus' face was stuck on pained.

"Yeah."

"Deasil, that's very advanced magic."

"Show me."

"Yeah, show him," Tonks said. She was having some kind of fun at Remus' expense, but it wasn't for me to interfere. Her, smiling, and something tugging at me inside. The memory of Remus and the way he saw her was not far from me, and that was a little weird, but I guess this is a roundabout way of saying I could see his point. I liked her.

"Oh…right, then," he said, and gestured with his wand. And just like that, Tonks's shoulders had a giraffe's neck sprouting from them. Her face bobbed gently, grafted onto the white and brown mottled fur, four feet or so above us.

"Why's he looking up there, Remus?" Tonks said.

"He thinks he's looking at your face," Remus said, also looking up, with a little grin beneath his moustache.

She looked resigned. "What do I look like now?"

"Giraffe," he said.

From my point of view, it was odd. I could see her looking down at me, but I could also see her looking across at me from her usual height. Both aspects were sort of equally there, though one was simply wrong, for lack of a better term.

It was funny, to me. I almost laughed.

Tonks' lower face wore a narrow-eyed expression. "Are you trying not to laugh?" she said.

It was beyond odd. They were two aspects, two possibilities of the same thing. It didn't matter which was more likely: there they were. No, that wasn't quite true. One was not really there, it was just sort of wishful thinking.

What made me laugh finally was the idea that Remus wanted me to see her as having a giraffe's neck. It was so mercurial coming from this careful-seeming guy. Some people, you know, you don't expect them to be creative in that way, especially people who haven't finished thinking about magic in any sensible manner. No, I hadn't forgotten that much. Good magic, which emitted butterflies and smelled of honeysuckle, versus bad magic, which made cats screech and burned your eyes and smelled like that smoke thing that Fred had left behind after turning me back from a canary into myself, and by this definition, that had been very bad, evil, dark, dank, smelly magic. Yeah.

So yes, I laughed, and Tonks shoved me a little, and then Remus had me try to do it. It was a fairly hilarious half-hour or so. Once he'd stopped trying to tell me how to do it, I set about trying it for myself. At first I couldn't get anything to happen, but then I thought about what Tonks might think was funny and had Remus looking like a platypus in no time.

So many things, for me, are about just finding a reason for doing them, a use for knowing them. Every time someone taught me something, I would ask a lot of questions that somehow managed to irritate my teacher, and I'd struggle mostly with why you'd want to do something in the first place, like levitating a feather with a stick or figuring out how far away two gannets would be from each other in a half hour if they'd started flying in opposite directions and one of them had eaten a fish weighing three hundred and fifty grams when in the first place it wouldn't take a half hour for the gannets to stop being startled by the thing that made them fly off in different directions to begin with and in the second place, half as far as that anyway because one of those gannets would have remained stationary, being dead from choking on a fish of that size.

It's around that point where someone throws up their hands.

Remus did not, however, which is partially to his credit and partially to Tonks', because she knew foolishness when she saw it. What I really liked about her was that she drew a line between Remus' habits and his heart. Not a foolish woman.

We were finishing up when Remus asked me where the illusion was that I was creating.

"'Where' meaning what?"

"'Where' meaning: is it in the world with us?"

"Well, no, I suppose not," I said.

"If it's not here," he said, gesturing around his head, which had so recently been sporting a bill (something I was apparently a fan of), "then where is it?"

"Uh. It's in the, uh."

"It's a little to the left," Tonks said.

He shushed her. "Give it a moment."

It was really quiet out there for a bit. Then I heard the wind in the trees and my breathing and I hadn't tried Quidditch yet and Remus needed some new clothes and what was that song my mother had been singing to my brother? And I had nothing. No idea whatsoever.

Tonks.

"It's in more than one place but not really anywhere," I said. "It starts in me and ends up in your mind and her mind."

"Spot on," he said. "So it hasn't any size or weight."

"Or, um…" I said.

"Yes?" he said.

"Limits," I said.

"Go on," he said.

"Well, if I can make you see a platypus head, why can't I make you see a… a… a really _huge_ platypus head? Or an airplane, or Manhattan?"

Remus smiled at me. "Indeed."

•

What next?

_You were downstairs. I saw you through the door and went upstairs to avoid you._

It was a "B". I'd thought it was a "P".

I _really, really _thought it was a "P".

I could have _sworn_ it was a "P".

It _had been_ a "P".

Now it was a "B".

Had it been a "P"?

I was sitting at the table again. Remus and Tonks had left, and some hours had passed. I was trying to like tea, actively, with a will and a mirror. I wasn't using the mirror to like tea with - I was just staring at it while I was doing the efforted tea-liking. I'd thought that this mirror had been emblazoned with a "P", but I guessed I'd not looked closely enough – and it would make sense that it was a "B", having come from Sirius. It was just that when he'd given it to me and shown me the other one…oh, wait, it _had _been a "B". I'd seen his clearly. Two matching mirrors, problem solved.

I'd just come from another little mini-adventure, in the way that things happen to me in clumps, and not that the clumps were comprised of things that had anything to do with each other or were resolved satisfactorily or where I won something or what have you, but these little chains of events would occur, and I would go through them, and then find myself sitting somewhere alone thinking of unrelated stuff – look, I'm not really saying there was a pattern to any of this, just that things happen to me and here I am. So, the adventure.

I'd been feeling unsettled. Something was on my mind (though as I unwound this memory with Ginny, I had no idea what that was, and apparently, nor did she), and I felt a great urge to talk to Bill about it. (Which seemed odd to me as I recalled it with her because I didn't remember talking to Bill ever about much of anything really.) So I asked my mother if I could stick my head in the fire and talk to Bill, and she said yes but I'd best throw some floo powder in first or I might look very surprised for a while, and I asked why, and she said that happened when you had no eyebrows, and I said "oh." or something witty like that. She said I should go down to the big fireplace, toss some in and very clearly say "Gringotts, office of William Weasley", and so, after some hesitation, rehearsal and lip-biting, I did so.

What I saw was like looking through a yellow-and-amber waterfall at an office room. Bill was seated behind his desk, flipping through sheets of thick paper. He looked up in surprise when he saw me.

"Well, now, communicating like the locals," he said, getting up and coming around to sit on the edge of his desk. His voice flickered and came and went a little, as if it were riding the edge of a flame. "What can I do for you, Deasil?"

"I, uh… I wanted to talk to you about yesterday," I said. (No idea what I was talking about.)

He became much more serious. "Maybe now isn't the time for it. Why don't we meet after work?"

"Sure," I said. "Where?"

He thought for a moment. "How about the Burrow? Can you remember that place?"

"The Burrow." Flashes of the bare floor, boxes. Windows a bit dirty. Empty counters, bare table that we sat at when we came in to talk. Moonlight outside. "I remember the kitchen."

"That's the part I always remember most too," he said.

"Well, okay, I'll just pop right in there. Five?"

"Five," he said. I noticed that there was a blur around his earring.

"Your jewelry looks fuzzy," I said.

"My – oh," he said. Not giving up the points. "D, you shouldn't be able to even see that. I Disillusioned it. Workplace decorum, you know."

"You can make things invisible in a bank?" I said.

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. "Doesn't sound very secure, does it?"

"No. Say, Bill, if I appear in the kitchen, doesn't it make the air pressure in the room go up?"

"Errm…"

"You know, like if a whole lot of people appeared in a room, couldn't you, like, blow the windows out or something?"

"Right then," he said, "don't bring a load of people with you, just on the off chance, eh?"

"Right enough. See you later."

"Bye for now, Deasil."

I pulled my head out of the fire and then realized that I wanted to ask him one more thing, I don't remember what, and discovered the hard way that you really do have to keep putting floo powder in or else it's just a fire.

I watched the smoke curl towards the ceiling from my shirt collar and contemplated my stupidity along with Charlie's assertion that the house was infested with rats. While jerking away from the hearth and performing a rather enthusiastic anti-flame dance, I'd seen a sizable one skitter along a baseboard before disappearing under a cabinet.

So, what with one thing and another striking me, I thought to myself, "What does this moment really need?" and answered myself, "why, some dried leaves soaked in hot water, and of course some sugar and cream added because otherwise it would taste like hot water with dried leaves soaked in it," and made for the kitchen, where I hoped things would be a little less weird.

I had a moment to think, as I put water on to boil (my father preferred to do this without magic, which I liked) and scavenged for a tea bag, about how I was actually alone for a little while. No one was teaching me, or trying to explain why I couldn't do something that I clearly just had, or, I don't know, avoiding me because of something I didn't understand, like Ginny had been –

_I know. I know._

- and so I was enjoying a special moment, that of waiting for a kettle to whistle.

The world waited with me.

First the quiet.

The rushing sound.

The tremble of the brass kettle.

Was that the first of the large bubbles?

No…

That?

No…

The appearance of a large silver walrus in the kitchen broke my concentration.

The fact that it was speaking in Bill's voice didn't really rein it in.

"Sorry, mate," the walrus said, "Fleur reminded me of something I have to do five-ish. Call it six, shall we? Oh, and ask your mum what a patronus is. Cheers."

It humped its way to the door and then faded, silver swirls in the air where it had been.

Nothing lasts. Especially silver walruses, and peace.

The water was boiling now, anyway.

That was my little adventure.

So I was sitting there with my mirror, trying to like my tea, and feeling a little grumpy about things appearing out of nowhere and strangeness ensuing, when witha noise like a deck of cards being shuffled, if the cards had been made out of meat, perhaps, the twins abruptly appeared in the room with me.

"Deasil" and "Harry" came out of them simultaneously. I had to acknowledge the truth of it.

"Gentlemen," I said, standing up.

"Don't leap to any conclusions," George said.

"Wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea about us," Fred said.

"I think there's little danger of that, Fred," I said.

He looked at George for a moment, disbelief on his face.

"Do you usually talk first?" he said to his brother.

"No idea," George said.

"I was hoping that would be it."

"It's about fifty-fifty," I said.

"Ah, well, a mystery for another day," Fred said.

"But we have far greater mysteries to plumb," George said.

"Deeper, more abstruse…"

"More impenetrable, more arcane…"

Here we go, I thought.

"More convoluted, more…mysterious, even," Fred said.

"Hadn't we said that one?"

"I suppose so."

"Ineffable?"

"I think you've effed this one just fine," I said, with not much color in my voice. This was tiring. They were a bit much right now.

"This is a moody one we've got here," Fred said, crossing his arms.

"Positively saturnine," George said.

"Do you two travel around with a thesaurus or what?" I said.

"Strangely enough," Fred said as though I weren't there, as though they were just performing for each other or something, "he's not the only – what word were we up to?"

"Glum," George said.

"Morose."

"Sulky."

"Ooh, that's a good one. He's not the only sulky person around here."

"Take our young sister, for example."

"Mind your choice of words, George."

"Too right, you. She's been in a right snit all day long, apparently – how'd I do with 'snit', then?"

"_I _haven't got anything better."

"Won't talk to us except to shoo us off, head stuck in books she isn't reading, flying about like someone's chasing her." I had to admit they were observant. I hadn't seen them all day. "And here we come in to snatch up a bit of food and take our minds off of that cold hearted rejection at the hands of our only sister -"

"And what are we faced with?"

"Mr. Mopey."

"George," Fred said, "you've been holding out on me."

"Actually," he said, indicating me, "it was one of his."

"Well done then, Deasil, well done indeed. 'Mopey'. Excellent."

"So ordinarily we might not relate these two encounters," George said, "only our brother Ronald let slip that there had been a bit of a kerfuffle down the pub -"

"The cast of characters including one Michael Corner, inebriated, one Deasil Potter, stone cold sober, and one Ginny Weasley, vexed."

"Irate."

"Cross."

"I'm mustering a few of those myself," I said.

"And we gathered," George continued as he sat on the edge of the table opposite me, "that there had been a question of Ginny's honor, that a challenge had been submitted -"

"That her good name had been, shall we say, sullied -"

"Besmirched -"

"Questioning it would have been enough," I said.

"And that you appointed yourself her representative, and attempted to explain to young Corner the error of his ways."

"Which was not well received when the owner of the reputation showed up and observed you involving yourself in her business."

"And this is something," Fred said, "that our lovely and fearsome sister does not appreciate."

"In the slightest."

"I get that," I said.

Fred said, "Anyone that steps in and meddles with her affairs is bound to get the same treatment you did."

"So don't feel special in any way."

"Even we, her own flesh and blood – Ow!"

"Emphasis on the blood," Ginny said, appearing in the door with her wand out and her mouth firm. Fred was rubbing a red welt on his arm. "Let me see if I understand this correctly. You're lecturing this idiot -" That would be me. "-on staying out of my business. He probably doesn't even _remember_ last night. You, on the other hand, should remember what happened the _last_ time you warned a bloke about me. And yet here you are, poking your noses in again. One would think you _like_ bats."

That went over my head.

"Oh, of course not, Gin-Gin, 'like' is surely not the word -"

"No, surely it's 'fear', our dear and terrifying sister -"

"Then why would it be," she said, tapping her wand into her palm, "that you insist on doing things that practically _demand_ that I reacquaint you with them?"

"Unintentional, really -"

"Not what it looked like -"

"Really," she said. "Really. What it _looks_ like," she said, rounding on all three of us, "is too little, too late. Maybe you should have stepped in when I was a little girl, all alone at school, instead of charming my hairclips to pop open at random. Maybe you should have stepped in when I was by myself against sodding Death Eaters sixth year. Maybe you should have stepped in when this cloudy-headed forget-all came here and broke our home into pieces."

It was quiet except for the roaring in my ears. I knew she was right. I knew I'd broken things.

"Actually we tried to," Fred said after a moment, "but you stopped us."

"Threatened us with wooden legs."

"We know better than to cross you."

The back-and-forth was fading out as I sat down. I kind of wanted to run, but I didn't have any energy, suddenly. I heard them going on, but I couldn't bring myself to hear it. It was a little too much. She was right. I broke things when I left, and when I came back I broke them again. It was just no good being here. I would miss my parents and my brother, and even her, mostly her, but it wasn't right that I take her home away from her, and the longer I stayed here the worse it got. Besides, at the heart of it, Tom had gotten inside me.

Maybe he'd left something there, and she could see it.

I couldn't expect her to just look past that.

When I came back from the place I'd been in, it was quiet again.

I looked up to discover the twins in an uncharacteristically somber and silent state. They were looking at her as if she'd gone too far. When I swung my ten-thousand-pound head around to look at her, her face was in her hands.

"I'll go," I said.

The look she gave me was that of a person faced by relentlessly repeated horrors, an almost pleading expression that I didn't understand.

"No," she said, her soft tone sliding between my ribs and piercing me, "…then _everything_ will break."

She left the room. I counted thudding steps upstairs. Don't wonder how many it was. They took her away, which is all I can remember now.

After a pause, George said, "So… as we have said, I believe… erm … moody."

I wondered for a moment if we had been in the same room. How they could be so quick to joke about this was beyond me.

"Deasil, our Ginny says a lot of things in anger that we have learned not to take to heart," Fred said.

"Even when they're true?" I said.

"Well, we did prank her when she was little."

"And she was by herself when Hogwarts was taken over." I hadn't heard all of that story, clearly.

"And I did wreck everything when I came back," I said.

"Deasil -" Fred ran his hand through his hair, looking up at me, struggling with something. "Look, mate, we know none of this was your idea. We even know that the only reason Mum and Dad are back here is because you fought the forgetting charms."

"And it's likely that if you'd stayed here, you'd have been killed by Death Eaters."

"But -"

"Here's the point where you want to think for a moment before you speak." George's voice was a little louder, mostly to get my attention, I think. "Maybe you're going to start saying that somehow that wouldn't be a bad thing. That at least our lives would all be as they were."

"You know, like our friend Hagrid says," Fred said. "Codswallop."

"Even if you hadn't given us our parents back, your parents got _you_ back," George said. "And we owe them. They took care of us."

"Molded us into the fine examples of manhood that stand before you."

"And molded Ginny into the perfect example of womanhood that was only just then terrorizing us."

"You can't go back," Fred said, "and take our lives away just because you feel bad now."

"We got what we got."

"And you got what you got."

"No point in wallowing in it."

"Unless what you got is…" Fred looked at his nails. "Fabulous."

"In which case it wouldn't be wallowing, so much as…"

"Reveling."

That last one was me. I was just trying to put the brakes on this, really.

George and Fred shut up for a moment.

I think the hardest thing for me at the moment was feeling her pulled apart – so much going on in there, and nothing I could do to ease it. I knew she was taking something out on me, but I couldn't imagine it being anyone else.

In some weird way, that made me feel close to her.

"Quick, this one," George said.

"I was actually going to use that very word," Fred said.

"Can you two just _stop it_?"

A table runner began, in a very subtle manner, to inch its way towards what might have been a safer part of the table. Two doilies jumped ship altogether, disappearing over the edge.

"Sorry, mate," George said. "We're just trying to keep it light."

"It's not working. It just sounds like noise. I can barely think straight as it is. I can't make sense of anything.

"I can't go on feeling like this," I said, "and I _really_ can't drink."

The look they shared should have warned me. The other thing that should have warned me was the appearance of wands and two curling, twisting streams of light that hit me in the head.

All of a sudden, I felt a whole lot better.

It was like seeing Tonks with a giraffe's neck. I knew it wasn't true, or real.

I just didn't care. At all.

So things got a little goofy. I started by creating an illusion for Fred and myself that George's head had disappeared, to be replaced by something pale, round and partially split, that he usually kept covered, but which I felt he'd been talking out of anyway, so…

Fred's eyes got huge, and then he hooted with laughter. Which was funny, because the sound bore a vague relation to the noises emanating from George, though said noises were perhaps throatier, if a little buzzy. Fred managed to calm himself for a moment, and attempt to look thoughtful.

"He's going to need a bigger hat," he said, and we both guffawed.

I cancelled the illusion and Fred said, "Do me next!"

It takes a man with quite a sense of humor to want to look as if he has an arse for a head, and Fred was that man.

•

Naturally foolishness ensued. There was a lot of it handy. They brought their usual abundance and I had picked up my share of it. I had them (and myself) looking like everything and everyone I could think of. Fred was, in turns, Ron with very bushy eyebrows, Dumbledore bald and in a pink nightgown, and Bill with arms that dragged the ground. George made a fetching Hermione wearing something that looked a little racy for her, and really, you could see the resemblance when he appeared as Molly in Arthur's criminally horrid housecoat. It wasn't much of a leap once you got past the height - you could really see a direct line between them. Apparently, in my looking between the two, I'd made that visible to Fred, and he was laughing jerkily at the sight of George's face oozing into Molly's and back.

Then I remembered I was actually supposed to be somewhere later that night. At five. No, six. It was around five now, wasn't it?

Could I make it there? Did I really remember it? Let's find out, I said to myself. I drained out of the room in my house and appeared in the Burrow's kitchen. I must have been noisy about it – the glass in the windows rattled. Okay, I could do it.

Before I went back, the last thing I noticed was that clearly the rat problem was all over the place. I saw a fat one trying to squeeze out under the door. That was good for a laugh. That little tail – oh, boy. I had a bit of a cackle over that.

"All right, now, no popping away from us," the nearer one said, "we have to stick together to have proper fun, yeah?"

"No running off without us, Deasil," the other one said.

Didn't know which one said what. Didn't care. "If you say so," I said. "Who wants to look like… uh…something else?"

"Anything in particular?"

I thought. I guess I did. My mind was going any old way.

"What's the worst thing you can think of, D?"

At the moment I couldn't think of anything bad. So I turned to one of them with the appearance of one of my ears being kite-sized, and sort of bunched it up towards him. "Can you speak up a little?"

My leg was going off.

I conducted a quick pat-down of myself and discovered that my mirror was vibrating. Sirius. Here was a guy who needed a laugh. I imagined him looking at the mirror, waiting for me to answer, and looking at himself in the mirror, or maybe not, because maybe he didn't like looking at himself, but I didn't really care about that at the moment, and I thought, what if I look like him when I answer and so he doesn't know I've come on and then I say something and surprise him?

So I thought about his face, which I could recall in great detail somehow, and it made me wonder about the spell they cast on me, some kind of cheering-up thing, but not too much because, as I have said, I didn't care about it, or anything much really.

Looking like him, I reached out for the mirror with my intent and did my best to impress that image upon its recipient.

Which, as it turned out, was not Sirius.

It wasn't enough that rats were everywhere, but now here was a guy who kind of looked like one.

His entire face seemed to point forward in a lumpy way, with its peak at his splotchy reddish nose. His mouth was drawn up small, with his lower lip further back than his upper. He had barely any chin. A patchy stubble ranged across what there was of it.

"Well," I said, "_you_ really are a rat-faced bastard."

The twins nearly collapsed in hysterical silent laughter.

"Is that any way to greet your old friend after all these years?"

"Oh, you're right, you're right," I said. "Errm – hi, rat-face. Long time no see."

I really thought the twins were going to need some assistance.

His mouth transformed into a sort of leer. "Say what you will, my old lag, but you won't be laughing when you're back with the Dementors where you belong." His face briefly went into shadow, and I could see that he was walking among trees.

It occurred to me that whatever I did now, this guy thought I was Sirius, which at that moment meant a huge opportunity to play a practical joke on my godfather. It might loosen him up a bit. That's what I was thinking, anyway.

"How do you reckon?" I said, trying not to laugh in spite of my great wit.

"It's little Harry," he said, his voice assuming a hoarsely melodic quality, like a little song. "Gone away and grown up, then come back, only to meet his end at the hand of his convict godfather."

He made a sound that was kind of like a giggle, except uglier, then his voice fell into a breathless rasp. "He's _dead_, you see. Burned up alive at the gingers' old shack. Fiendfyre did for him. And who do you think is dark enough and angry enough at Harry to roast his bones with the black flame? Ask any Auror. That darkest of the Blacks, that murdering sod, Sirius. _You_. And no one will ever suspect me, because I'm _dead_, and _you_ will go back to prison for the _second time_ for his murder, and only you and I will ever know the truth!"

I had to count to five, but I couldn't hold out any longer than that.

I shouted with laughter. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

His face went from this repellant version of a smirk to a repellant version of surprise. His lips shrinking into a small "o" and his nose quivering didn't help him any.

I felt like I should know who he was, but I didn't care enough to pursue that. Now seemed like a better time for whimsy than anything else, and I had plenty, for better or worse, of that. Like for instance: was he maybe talking about the Burrow?

I wondered if I could do with this room what I did with the twins' heads and my face. I kind of had an idea, though I didn't know what it was, really. Just decided to go with it.

So I thought about the kitchen at the Burrow, where I'd just been. I remembered that room, more sharply than I had imagined possible. The uneven floorboards, the slight arch between the living room and dining room, the splitting wood around the windows in the kitchen, the battered counters and fading tile. The long table with a slight bend in the middle, the bare paintless chairs.

A bit drab, but it didn't bother me any. Not to put too fine a point on it, but nothing did.

How a chair half-pushed away from a table, covered with dust, could be funny to me, is something I can't imagine now. I moved the mirror around the room in a slow arc, as if shooting a home movie. That sounded fun. Like the gorilla movie I saw at the theater. Move in on the table, slowly scan through the kitchen, close up on a particularly interesting crack on the counter, kind of shaped like a dog. I think I might have added that in.

One thing left to show rat-face, I thought. The best part is, I thought, as I brought the mirror back to myself, that this is the only real thing he'll see.

Though it wasn't there, I felt a little loss as I slipped off Sirius' face like a comfortable winter coat. All of the image of him gone from me, I looked into the mirror and waved.

Rat-face did the same thing everyone does. His eyes went to my forehead. It was getting old. What people didn't usually do was squeal afterwards. I could see little red blood vessels in his eyes and on his cheeks, and his nose had a rosy cast to it. He shook. Not trembled, not shivered. His stippled jowls flapped, his yellow teeth were exposed and his mouth expanded, wet and dark pink. I waited, watching his tongue slither like a slug in acid, for him to yell.

It took so long for him to do it that I was actually a little surprised when he did. It didn't come out like I thought it would. It was great. It kind of sounded like "Gah, gah, gah," and it went on and on, getting louder until I wanted to just put the mirror down. As it was I moved it a bit away from my face. I became aware of George and Fred, on either side of me, trying to see into the mirror.

He fumbled and scrabbled in his clothes, still making the sound over and over. It was like really bad music. Not at all catchy, either. Finally he jerked a wand from somewhere. He shimmered then – the entire image became a blur.

The next clear image I could see was that of black flame.

His yells became screams, but I couldn't see his face any more. A sleeve, an arm, maybe, and then it was all black and billowing.

Somehow that reminded me of Ginny and burning up my parents' living room, and that had been really funny. Really, _really_ funny.

So I laughed.

I was still laughing while George and Fred held my arms, with both of their wands out, saying "Finite" repeatedly, which sounded festive, kind of. Laughing while they helped me lie down, laughing until my stomach hurt and my muscles ached, laughing at their pale faces, at my own laughter, laughing, laughing, until I slept.

•

Why could I see myself on the floor, body rattling like its parts had come loose from each other, held in place by the twins, their shoulders tense, their glossy blue robes looking stupid and vain, while they shouted spells over and over that didn't work until I finally extinguished like a pinched candle and lay there still?

_Because I was there._

_Because I stole your father's cloak and came down invisibly to see you, and work up the courage to talk to you, but when things started I couldn't reach out, and then it went so wrong, and I could have stopped it all but I didn't. I suppose I was wrong to say I'm only afraid of two things. I'm afraid of everything. I ruined everything._

•

So it was done. She leaned back and looked at me.

There were still things missing. I still didn't know what had happened that I had been so upset about, other than my part in the death of the rat-faced man. I still didn't know why I was supposed to hate her.

"You were wrong about Sirius," I said.

"Excuse me?" she said. No fun at all.

"He knows what it's like to have his mind violated. The dementors did it every day he was in prison."

She was very still for a moment, looking at me.

"You got your period at eleven?" I said.

"Wh-" she said.

"Sorry. Just popped in there."

"Yes."

"Tough year," I said.

"I was going to say 'You have no idea,'" she said, "but that would be wrong."

"So."

"Yes."

"Is that it?" I said.

"I take it you mean 'Are we finished with the memory business' and not 'Haven't you got something more impressive'?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"We're… we're done looking inside, now?" Pressure building.

"I believe I'd covered that just now."

"Right," I said. "Right."

And then there Lucius was, his expression of surprise and of fear, and a feeling of falling, his face receding into blankness as he died, the end of a thing, the difference between on and off, light and dark. That was what I had been upset about all that day. What I was meeting Bill about. What I had done. What I couldn't see when we were looking together.

I couldn't tell her. And I guess the only way I could keep from telling her the truth was for me not to know it myself. And now that she wasn't looking anymore, it came back to me, brutally, crushingly.

"Do you hate me?" she said, her bottom lip shifting to the right, as it did when she worried what someone thought, and it wasn't often that she made that expression, but I knew it, heartbreaking and precious as all her expressions were to me. My face must have been repeating all of these feelings, because she stood abruptly and went to the door, stopping just before she was through it.

"Never," I said.

Her shoulders released and she put a hand to her face. "Then what -"

I _had_ to tell her.

I just couldn't do it _now_.

•

A/N: A long wait, full of new life and changes. Sometimes you're changing the way you think about things, sometimes you're changing planes, sometimes you're changing diapers. This is the long chapter that the short one preceding it had to be in front of and separate from. Thanks to Freja for funny parsing, and to moshpit and Sovran for somehow finding the time, and to J for liking the sound of my voice, and also for little J.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

When you make a promise to someone, you're being a little unreasonable. The world is complex. Not like furniture-assembling complex, or tax form complex, but building-scale-models-of-the-Spanish-Armada-from-memory-with-a-toothpick-attached-to-one-toe-while-copying-the-O.E.D.-backwards-with-the-wrong-hand-and-defending-yourself-with-the-other-from-a-rabid-monkey-in-chainmail-armed-with-darts-and-also-singing-the-middle-bit-from-_Bohemian-Rhapsody_-but-only-every-other-word-and-just-the-parts-sung-by-the-drummer-with-the-very-high-voice complex, only a bit worse. That's the equivalent of trying to manage a single leaf falling from a tree from the point of view of the world, and even then from only a few seconds before it happens when it's more or less a foregone conclusion at that point. But the thing about it is, things happen in the world without the world thinking about it. The world is not encumbered by knowing. Tiny unknowable things are happening all around you, little particles colliding and combining and interacting with each other, and if there are enough of them you might, say, change your mind about going to the store to buy food for dinner and instead go to a pub where you bump into someone on the way in and they think the person next to you did it and look up in anger only to meet the gaze of someone they find irresistible and later that week manage to work up the courage to speak to them and then they discover they have a lot in common what with the sports enthusiasm and similar speech defects and what have you and after a few pints they go back to someone's flat to see if other things fit together as well and discover that to the great delight of one and chagrin of the other there are two of the same organs present between them and then the one with chagrin figures "well, we do have the similar speech issues and everything," and things go like they might and the next time you're in the pub you bump into a couple, one looking a little bashful and one perfectly content but both oblivious to the world around them, and thus they make you spill your drink on your new pants, and so you never know, do you. And these things are happening all the time, so when you swear up and down that you're going to give someone a ride to the game, it's just irresponsible, really, because the day before you might find a single sock in the dryer and things would just unravel from there.

And yet, somehow, promises had been made, and continued to be.

•

In a move that will surely surprise you, my reader, I'd like to pick up right where I left off.

"You don't hate me," she said.

She was returning to me with little aftershocks. I knew her, and more than I could have before, because I'd seen what she saw, just for a little while. Felt everything she felt. It was kind of hard to localize, though. That writhing knot of feelings, like a mating frenzy of garter snakes, that surrounded that guy, me. And the difference between being her and seeing her. I knew that she disliked her height and sometimes despaired of hair that made her color choices limited, and I also knew that I loved the angle of her upturned face and the shining deep copper that framed it. And I knew that I was part of terrible things that I could not look at in that moment. And I knew that my being enthralled by her was obscuring those things, but I needed that. Very much.

I was of many minds.

"Are you sorry we did that?" she said. Still looked like she was poised for flight.

"No! No. Not even a little. None. I'm, um…"

I went towards her. She was tense over this, and I wanted that to stop.

"I'm grateful," I said. "I know that was hard for you and maybe you'll never do it again, but I l- …I loved it."

She didn't know what to say. Her eyes were full of something really wonderful mixed with a little surprise.

"You helped me remember a lot," I said, "and you told me a lot of things that you didn't have to, but I'm really glad you did. I hope you – uh – didn't mind hearing me think or anything."

A little laugh came from her like a carriage appearing over a hill, which is to say it rose up from nowhere and jingled a little bit. "I didn't mind at all. I liked it, too. Sometimes it made me want to laugh, but not out loud. That sounded like something you'd say," she said, looking almost pleased with herself.

And it did kind of sound like me.

"If you need that…" she said.

"Meaning?"

"If you need help remembering."

"Yes?"

"I'll help you."

"Will you let me show you what I see?" I said.

"I will. I will."

"You know, that light isn't coming from anywhere."

"There was this way…" she said.

"Yes?"

"This way you looked at me. Or saw me, really."

"Okay."

"I almost didn't…"

"Yes?"

"I almost didn't – recognize myself," she said.

"You saw yourself the way I see you instead of…"

"How I usually see myself."

"Right."

"I have a -" She stopped speaking and kind of wandered a little closer to me. Not quite looking at me, but giving me the side of her face, like she was looking at me with her cheeks.

"You have a…" I said.

"A question I want to ask you."

"All right."

"It's a weird question. And I know how it sounds, but I'm really asking so I can understand something."

"Okay."

"About how it was different to see you look at me."

"Okay."

"Do you think I'm beautiful?"

Oh.

"I'll answer your question," I said, "but you have to listen to my entire answer."

"The entire answer?"

"Mmm hm."

"All right. Suspect, but fair. Go on, then."

"You promise?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Wait. This isn't the answer yet."

"Okay."

"I mean, it's … you're paying attention to me."

"I said I would," she said.

"Yeah, but it's kind of strong. You know, it makes me…"

"Are you going to insist on telling me how it makes you feel?"

"Uh…"

"If it involves your feet being warm then you can keep that bit to yourself."

"Oh, well, that's…that's kind of unfair."

"Why?"

"What if they are?"

"You've made me feel warm in spots too, but I don't tell you every time it happens."

"Okay, I suppose that's… what spots?"

"Just… spots, all right?"

"Oh. Those spots."

"What are you implying?"

"I have no idea."

"That is both endearing and disturbing about you, you know?"

"…thanks?"

"I'm getting used to it. It's sort of how you are in general."

"I was going to tell you if I thought you were beautiful," I said.

"You was? I mean, you were?"

"And I think that you are preemptively telling me how I am in anticipation of my telling you how you are."

"And if I were?"

"You're just doing that to preserve your pride."

"How can I have pride around someone who I can't help but tell the truth to?"

"Do you want to hear it or not?" I said.

"If you think you might ever get around to it," she said. "All of that nattering."

"You think you're funny, but really it's just a smell."

"This is my palm. Say hello."

"Hel- ouch, yes, it is."

"Now inform me of the status of my beauty, or you'll be saying hello to Ms. Palm quite frequently."

"Do you know how that sounds?"

"I…do."

"Okay, you win."

"Are you going to answer my question?"

"I am."

"Good."

"I was already. Bit of a petty victory."

"Victory nonetheless."

"Are you ready?"

"Fire away."

"Yes."

"Yes what?" Five points.

"Yes," I said.

"You made me promise to listen through your entire answer, and it's one word."

"You do like to interrupt m-"

"How can you say such a thing? And more importantly…"

"Yes?"

"You think I'm beautiful."

"I know you are. Like I know the sun's bright and not made of butter."

"Of course it isn't made of butter. It would melt itself."

"Does that make any sense?"

"Do you, ever?"

"I know my answer was short."

"Terse, even."

"But the thought wasn't. There are not enough words to describe it, but also way too many."

"Right now let's stick to 'too few'," she said.

"But I wanted you to hear the entirety of my answer."

"And I did."

"Not really."

"Oh? Did I sniff and drown out half of it?"

"No. You know what I mean."

"No, I don't."

"You do. Please."

"No."

"Ginny."

"Not any more today!"

Please.

I can't.

Please just look me in the eye.

I won't!

But you can hear me now.

…Bugger. Why?

You promised you would.

All right. All right! Show me then.

•

"I'm beautiful."

"I told you."

"I'm really beautiful."

"You are."

"Apparently, I'm beautiful."

"Mm-hm.

"That's amazing. I never…I never thought I…"

"Now what?"

"You're beautiful. Now what?"

"Well, I don't… it's funny, you know."

"How?"

"Well. It isn't as though I have a mad urge to go out on the town, breaking men's hearts, now that I feel…"

"Okay. Good. I mean, okay."

"It's only… you see, you gave me this. This comes from you, even if it's about me. It doesn't mean it's less true, or really I should say that it's true from a certain point of view, and that's your point of view, but I think that's just…that's all right. Even if it's only true because you said it was, it's still a gift, isn't it? I mean, it's still me, but you showed me _me_, but…beautiful. And I don't really care what anyone else thinks right now, because you showed me that."

There was a bit of light, fading.

She placed her hand in my hand, which must have been out to her, as it always was and, I felt, always would be.

"You are quite beautiful yourself," she said.

_She_ was what the sun was made of, and _I_ was made of butter.

•

We left the room and found Poppy and Hermione and talked some and Hermione was disappointed and Poppy was in a hurry and my mother came down and saw that I was all right and told me my father was out and would be back later and Poppy left and Molly and Arthur drifted in like a couplet someone had dropped from a poem about family because it was a little too weird and Molly for some reason had a few words for Ginny about how she'd been acting and how family was important and she ought not to be so distant and perhaps a looser-fitting shirt was in order and Arthur tried to head that off but Ginny said that Molly was an expert on distant but less so on family and Arthur and I shared a look before grabbing our dance partners and guiding them out of different doors, not without some resistance.

She was breathing a little heavily by the time I got her to a seat in my room.

"She knows just where to go to make me furious," she said.

"Like a moth to a flame, your mother," I said.

"She just can't seem not to," she said, raking her fingers through her hair. "There's no situation so bad that she can't make it worse."

"Well, then, at least you know now that things before weren't as bad as they could be."

She sat still, looking at me. I probably would have, too.

"My mum," she said. "Raising the bar on pants since 1952."

I couldn't make head or tail of that statement.

"And you," she said - looking at me with what would have been fiercely narrowed eyes if I hadn't been so close to her, because, you know, it's quite difficult to make that work within a foot or two, it needs a bit of distance to gather itself, and as long as I maintain a certain proximity I'm fairly immune to it, so they were actually just a little shifty-looking, maybe, but anyway, that – "manhandled me a bit."

"Well, I…"

"Yes?"

"I'm a man."

"Well-spotted."

"Had you noticed?"

"Mmm, perhaps."

"And I handled you."

"Come again?"

"Not in the sense that…only in the sense that I touched you."

"I see."

"You know very well what I mean. You're just trying to make me squirm."

"You bustled me up the stairs like I was a…"

"What I like about that," I said, "is that you are about to make yourself suffer by comparison to yourself."

"No, I am not," she said.

"Anymore."

"Get on with it."

"Okay. There were two motivating factors in hustling you up here."

"Bustling."

"Whatever you want."

"Enthrall me," she said, folding her arms.

"Number one, things were taking a turn for the worse."

"Do you think so?"

"They were taking on water."

"Erm."

"Sinking."

"Fine."

"And Molly was fully prepared not to see reason, and in this she, perhaps, may not have been entirely alone."

"Really."

"Tell me that's not true."

"Just go on, you great prat."

"So I wished to keep the peace, just as Arthur did."

"So the men have to step in and protect the unreasonable women from themselves."

"On the one hand, no, and on the other hand…still no."

"That's a two-handed no," she said. The almost-smile went very deep into me.

"It takes two hands," I said.

"It had better," she said.

"Are you threatening me?"

"Why? Are you scared of me?"

"Little you? Ow. Ms. Palm is a lot meaner closer up."

"Serves you right," she said. And listen here, my reader, they were not slaps, not smacks, really, just taps, and I can't explain it – if anyone else had done it to me I might have introduced them to Mr. Inappropriately-Affectionate Carpet, but with her, well, it was related to the second reason I'd frogmarched her upstairs.

But still. "Do you smack everyone that you meet?"

"Of course not. Only the ones that deserve -"

"So, like, your brothers? Me? Your boyfriends?"

"Boyfriends?"

"You know… people who don't want to smack you back."

"Erm."

"That doesn't exactly make you formidable, does it?"

"Where on earth are you going with this?"

"Do you think I'd do that to you in return? Ever?"

"Well, I should think not."

"So you're kind of a bully to someone who cares about you?"

"What?" Ten to me.

"Is it because you're short?"

"Wh -" She stopped herself.

"You also have a bit of a temper," I said. My voice was as soft-edged as I could make it.

"Which unfortunately you like to stoke to an inferno."

"It's not that I like it."

"Oh?"

"I love it."

"I don't find it charming that you want to get me mad so you can enjoy it."

"It's not really that either."

"What the bloody hell is it then?"

"It's the way your eyes flash. It's how you look unbreakable and full of a… a making kind of strength."

"A…"

"Most people are just swimming in this sea of probability. Things roll over them and past them and they're just tossed around by them and float on the surface or get pulled under, even, but they don't _make_ anything happen. But when you get your ire up, the world feels different around you, like you just say, 'to hell with anything to the contrary of me,' and make your place in it. You make things happen. And also…"

"Yes?"

"You look gorgeous."

Her head bowed and her hair fell in front of her face. After a moment she said, "I suppose I could learn to live with it."

"You have no choice. You're stuck with it."

"Didn't you…" She looked up at me suddenly. "You said there were two reasons you manhandled me up here."

"I did."

"Just keeping up with all the things you say…" She cast her gaze upwards. "Can't believe I actually remembered that."

"No one has really bothered like you," I said.

"How would you even know if anyone had?" she said. After a pause, during which her eyes widened and subsequently focused on an area rug that had rumpled in reproach, she said, "I think that was fairly insensitive of me to say."

"Not inaccurate, in general," I said.

"What do you remember? It seems like some things filter through and some don't. Do you remember any people from New York?"

I thought about it very little. "Not really. Maybe the guy who ran a hot dog stand, maybe a girl with blond hair or something, I don't know."

"A girl? A friend, maybe?"

"No idea."

"What did she look like?" She leaned forward a little. At the moment all I could really think of was what _she_ looked like.

"I can't really see her. Her face was… it's all a bit caliginous."

"I'm sorry?"

"Dim."

"Just because I-"

"The memory…of her… is dim."

"Yes. Right. I clearly need a…"

"Fuse?" I said.

"If you were not a little right about that," she said, her eyes intense, "I would have to kill you."

"Why is it," I said, "that when you say you'd have to kill me that somehow it sounds really, really appealing?"

"There are deaths, and there are deaths," she said.

"Stop that."

She laughed for me. Well, maybe it wasn't _for_ me, exactly, but it felt very much like a gift.

Joking about death.

•

A/N: Short, yes, but no one can deny reality forever, especially my protagonist. Thanks to my betas, and my Danish friend who rides along, and J for listening whole-heartedly, and Baby J for sleeping deeply so that I could write this.


	22. Chapter 22

I want you to imagine for a moment that I began my story another way, that - rather than gradually opening your eyes to this raveled and many-eyed creature on your chest staring back at you - you awakened, as all readers do when reading a story for the first time, to a dream of great clarity and a moment of realization. Yes. Awakened to a dream.

But unfortunately, I would have had to set the stage first. Which kind of ruins that. And there would have been a long part where I rattled on about some philosophical point or other and thus put more distance between you-the-reader and the action, the scene that needs to appear all at once, in such a way that you are drawn into the story immediately, as someone who is jogging down the street on a dry hot night, then passes through a curtain of cool water and is drenched through immediately, and finds that on the other side of the curtain it is daylight just after a rain and in a different city, but the jogger already is somehow part of that by virtue of passing through the curtain, shoes creaking with moisture and shirt heavy on the shoulder, and the world is all of a sudden forever changed. But this doesn't happen, because I would still be on about some story or other that will illustrate the thing I want to tell you somehow better than telling you the actual story would, and so the distance becomes even greater. What would any of this have to do with magic, and flying around, and something that might be romance, and family, and action and anything else you might have been expecting to read, if you expected anything? The gulf would grow larger line by line as I take the most circuitous route possible and you throw up your hands, utterly deprived of readerly satisfaction of any kind.

So in any event, you can imagine it if you want, but that's just not the way things work with me. I want to talk about after the fire at the Burrow and after I laughed myself unconscious, when Hermione was trying to rouse me, and how she kind of did but not all the way, and then how remembering something brought me part of the way up and then something else brought me the whole way.

Actually I don't want to talk about it, but here we are. It just seems like the right thing to do. I've been trying to escape it. One of the things about memory is that it shows up with great clarity when you wish it would just bugger off or at least mumble at you instead of shouting about every last detail of things. And now here I am, talking about other things again instead of the actual thing.

It's a curse.

No, it isn't. I'm still avoiding it.

•

Since we're talking about death here, or were, kind of, in the sense that any conversation you have for the express purpose of avoiding something can be said to be about that thing, and since I have been and, at the moment in my story, ihad/i been expending a huge amount of energy trying not to think about a few things in particular, well… naturally I still want to take a detour. Yes, maybe it makes me less of a man to do so, but there's a reason behind it. I want to tell you about a woman named Dolores.

But first, there was a whole other bit I didn't tell you about. Some of it comes from people telling me, some from guessing, and some from listening to fragments of what folks think about, when they're talking about something else, usually by accident because someone looks me in the eye. So it's like watching the news on several televisions at the same time, in that there are facts involved, but they're all over the place, and someone else decided to turn the televisions on, but you decide which one to watch at the moment, and it may not be the most important news story or well reported or true, even, but it caught your eye, and there you are. And I realize that by telling you this following story that describes events in the past, or at least events that happened before the main story (such as it is) that I'm telling, that I remove a small bit of drama from the future, that is to say later on when I'm telling this story about things that happened in the past, because I'm telling you now about things that you as a reader would not learn until further along if my narrative followed any sort of reasonable linear path. Well, it doesn't. And it's not much worse than what anyone else gives you in life. If you think about it, in a little while it will all be in your past and you can line it up like you want. The timeline is governed by memory, our own individual architect and clock-maker, and once an event is in there, it's up to you what you do with it. I have learned this.

Okay. Imagine that you run a magic school. Imagine that one year you hire a somewhat skittish fellow to teach a class about people who don't use magic. Imagine that he doesn't do very well the first few years, and then coincidentally you have a vacancy in another discipline that no one seems to be able to keep filled for very long. Imagine that you see this as an opportunity to move things around a little staff-wise, but that you see the problems in using a teacher with very little practical experience to teach a class that is intended to educate students in how to defend themselves from the worst things in your world. Let's say you decide your skittish fellow needs a little time in the field to collect some experiences with which to teach. Let's say you have the utter idiocy to send him to a country where a previously-yet-insufficiently-killed dark wizard is suspected (by you and almost no one else) to lurk, and better yet, that you send him into the very wilderness supposed to be the site of said lurking. Let's also say that he takes a little extra time coming back, and when he does, he's wearing a rather large turban, which by a strange coincidence the native people in the land he visited are pretty much uniformly thought not to ever do under any circumstances.

Let's say he comes back to work, no less of a weed apparently, but possessed, shall we say, of a much broader knowledge of things that go bump in the night and then kill you. Imagine that he spends the better part of a term unnerving the students and then begins to act a little strange. Er. Strange enough that a bookish first-year girl and two friends – a red-headed chess whiz and a quiet boy who's living under a secret burden – notice and begin to keep tabs on him.

The first moment they encounter anything odd is in the aftermath of a troll attack that occurs inside your supposedly secure school, when it's noticed that their weird professor has a twitch in his eye. Never mind that the girl had been attacked by the troll and it was the will and courage of the two boys and the spell-knowledge of the girl that allowed them to defeat the creature, and then several professors had shown up and started arguing and yelling, and nobody had bothered to turn off the broken plumbing that was spraying everywhere in the room – forget all that – the girl has managed to see that one of the professors has a little tremor on his face when looking at an unconscious troll. (If you are wondering what the definition of "focus" is - say, because you can't remember it - you can see a picture of that girl next to it, should you look it up in the dictionary.) This seems peculiar to her that he would be nervous around a supposedly dark creature that he teaches about.

But after that they notice that he avoids their vitriolic Potions 'master' like the plague. Also, he's seen talking to himself one night in a corridor that students are forbidden for some unknown reason to enter. Then they notice a rather doggy smell wafting from said corridor, and because she is an animal lover the girl drags her friends there to be sure that a local cur has not become trapped inside, and they do indeed discover something of a dog, that is to say a giant three-headed slavering monster-dog, and in the mad dash to escape the girl manages to notice that the dog is standing over a trapdoor, guarding something.

So she drags her (clearly very stalwart, by this point) friends to the school's gamekeeper, who is a sweetheart of a man but a little on the chatty side and thus tells them how to put the triple-scoop of dog to sleep, says it's guarding something and that you and Nicholas Flamel put it in there. He puts a bow on it by telling them he shouldn't have told them about any of that. So let's imagine that this girl, who is no idiot by a long shot, looks up Flamel and discovers that he's hundreds of years past retirement age because he has something nobody else has – a stone that lets him brew a tonic that keeps him alive way beyond his birth certificate's expiration date. Since he's not famous for anything else except not telling any other living soul how to make a magic rock that keeps you alive indefinitely, her chess-playing friend thinks it's the stone the dog is guarding, so when they go down to see the gamekeeper again, the boy bluffs and says they know that's what's in there. Not one to stand up to a bluff by an eleven-year-old, the gamekeeper cracks under the pressure of this brutal interrogation and tells them that yes, it's there, but that every teacher has chipped in to put traps and challenges between the stone and anyone foolish enough to try to take it. The girl is highly irate to discover that they're keeping something so valuable that it has to be guarded by deadly traps inside of a school where naturally inquisitive students will undoubtedly run afoul of the traps. When she and the boys come to you and she asks you about the soundness of this as an idea, you tell her that adult wizards and witches are in control of this situation and that the three of them should mind their own affairs and stay out of trouble, and what would their parents think?

So she asks her parents what they think, and after a tense series of owls, not that the owls were tense but their messages were, though owls are a little high-strung when you think about it, always pecking at you if the bacon's wrong or you're sleepy or something, but anyway, she writes a letter to the board of governors of the school saying that there is a magical artifact of great importance being kept there and that the safeguards in place around it are, she believes, unsuitable when children are in such close proximity. The board convenes a meeting, harsh words are said, and you are summoned to answer many charges.

While this meeting goes on away from the school, the three children overhear the Potions professor and the weird professor arguing about loyalties and the stone, and they figure out that the weird professor wants it, and they decide that the best thing to do is to go get the stone before anyone else can. So they try to get help from another professor, the head of their house whose "door is always open," who dismisses their concerns out of hand. Then they ask their three-foot Charms professor for help, and after listening to their concerns, he agrees that something may be afoot and tells them to return to their rooms and wait. At this point the quiet boy speaks up and reminds the professor that he can't get past the three-headed dog without them because they know how to do so, and thus they find themselves standing in a room with a sleeping cerberus and a chess whiz hooting through a tin flute while the Charms professor jumps down a hole and, perhaps excessively, roasts a giant plant to death, then leaves them behind.

After a half-hour of waiting and an ominous crash or two from below, followed by the redhead's announcement that he doesn't know any more sodding flute songs, they jump into the trap door. Upon dragging themselves out of a roomful of burnt salad, they find a room full of keys flying around with one jammed into the lock of another door, and go through the door to find a huge space with a giant chess board covering most of the floor. They see the Charms professor clinging to the back of an immense stone knight and shouting out moves to the other giant pieces, and figure that he's got this one handled, so they creep around the edges and enter another room with potions and a logic test that is right out of the Mensa entrance exam, which the girl has unsurprisingly already taken, and thus they find themselves at the edge of a flaming barrier, which presumably has on its other side the thing they have searched for. As a result of her logic-problem-solving efforts they have a small phial of liquid that will allow one of them to pass through the flames unharmed. They are talking about who gets to go on when the sound of explosions reaches them. The girl realizes they are running out of time. She figures she can talk her way out of anything and that the redhead is a good runner, so she pours the potion down the quiet boy's throat and shoves him through the flames.

The boy is in a large, round stone room. Flames surround its periphery. He can't see any smoke, and the fire has no smell, so it's clearly magical in nature. In the center of the room is a large mirror, about eight feet in height. It has a thick arched wooden frame with rough carving on it – something that someone might think of as dreamy, if his or her only tool to express that had been a blunt chisel. In contrast to that is lettering carved with a certain prissy quality into the top arch of the frame. The boy realizes that it is text that is written backwards, and is something about the mirror showing what one's heart's desire is. He gets a little closer to it and sees something in it that is definitely not just him in a room surrounded in flames. In a moment this image disappears, and to his horror he sees, behind him, the figure of his turbaned dark arts professor approaching through the fire.

So the boy (you're still imagining this, right?) hides behind the mirror. The professor comes into the room. He sees the mirror and curses, with a tone that no student of his has ever heard. The boy cannot see him, but he can hear as the man approaches and stands at the mirror, having what appears to be an argument with himself. After a moment, it subsides, and the man says, "Is this truly what you see, my lord?" The way he says this unnerves the boy, but even more alarming is that there is a reply. A muffled rasp like the sound of tearing fabric.

The professor says, "But we are all dead, pureblood and Mudblood alike – there's only you…"

Another rasp follows this, and the boy can make out the last of it – "distorted… by the stone."

There is a bit of a silence, which is broken only by the buffeting of the flames as someone steps through. The boy can't bring himself to look, but the professor answers his question for him. "Granger! What are you doing here? How did you pass the barrier?"

"The potion phial refills itself when you return it to the table," she says. Her voice is shaking. The boy wants to move but he feels frozen. He's never felt like this in his entire brief life. He is gripped by something other than himself, a vise that surrounds him utterly. He has been afraid before, often several times a day, but it has never been this feeling, that his body would simply not respond. He can't really feel the fear as much as he would expect, but he still cannot stir. Behind the mirror, motionless, he hates himself.

"What do you know of this place?" The professor's voice is harsh.

"Nothing, professor," she says. "I was exploring, my friends – my friend and I…"

She is trying to protect the boy. He can't make himself move and she is trying to protect him. Helpless. He is helpless.

Another billowing sound from the flames, and then shoes on the floor.

"Weasley?" the professor says. There is a pause, and then he says, "What are you doing with this Mudblood?"

"Oi!"

"You Weasleys," the professor says, "always have a soft spot for your inferiors. It weakens you, can't you realize that? No matter. Both of you! In front of the mirror, now!"

Dragging footsteps, sharper and more abrasive than before. Closer to the frozen boy. They stop.

"What do you see, Granger?"

"I…I'm older. I'm… Head Girl, no, I'm... My hair…!"

"Enough! Spare me. Weasley! What do you see?"

He is quiet for a moment.

"Weasley, speak!"

"What d'you want? It's nothing! I'm a Quidditch player, I'm tall, I'm famous. How's that important to anyone? What is this, bleeding career day?"

"Ron!"

"What? We're just having a look about. All he can do is give us detention."

"I think you'll find I can do worse than that, Weasley."

The flames rumble once more. Light footsteps sound this time.

"Quirinus!" the Charms professor says. "Thank goodness you're here! Is it safe?"

"For the m-moment," he says.

"Ah, well, then. You see, children? All is well. Shall we be getting you back to your common rooms, then?"

"Professor," the girl says - then pauses. "We're awfully sorry to have caused you so much trouble. We just need to find our friend and we'll be going."

Protecting him again.

"Your friend?" The dark arts professor's voice is unmistakably menacing.

"Oh, yes, of course," the Charms professor says, "where is young Longbottom?"

The sound of the flames.

The dark arts professor's voice is a roar. i"Longbottom!"/i

"Quirinus, is there something…"

The flames billow violently.

"Albus?" the Charms professor says.

"Quite the night for adventures, don't you think, Filius? I believe these two students have had their fill. Perhaps you would be so kind as to accompany them to their common room?"

"Why, yes, certainly, that is, if you're all right, Quirinus?"

"Professor Quirrell and I will see to the… the stone's security. Thank you, Filius. Good evening, Miss Granger, Mister Weasley."

"Professor…" the girl says.

"Quickly, now, before curfew, you wouldn't want to be out overly late -"

"But Professor, it's Neville, he -"

"Now, then, children, go along, Neville will turn up, you know how distrait he can be, surely hiding near the chessboard, now off with you." The boy twists inside, but it sounds like something he would do. The kind of boy who hides when his friends are brave.

Magic discharges and the children are gone through the flames.

"Now then, Quirinus. A curious position we find ourselves in. What could have bought you this far through the gauntlet of protections?"

"Th-th-the ch-ch-children had gotten p-past all of th-the e-e-en- enchantments, p-Professor."

"My goodness, that stutter needs seeing to. One moment it's not there at all and the next you can barely speak. Why don't we just dispense with it altogether?"

The boy finds space in his paralysis to be surprised.

"Albus, you were always so clever," the professor says. "Tell me. You've hidden the stone inside the mirror with a conditional ward, not unlike the Fidelius charm. How can we be sure that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named can not retrieve it?"

"Oh, we can be quite certain. You see, the stone is hidden to all except one who would wish to find it, but not use it. Since Voldemort obviously wants to use it to return himself to life, he can never find it."

"And destroying the mirror?"

"Would merely banish the stone to the nearest active volcano. Quite clever, if I do say so myself."

There is a long, shivering sigh from the younger man. "Then this was all for nothing. Pointless."

"Not entirely, Quirinus. Not entirely."

"All of this…pain. All of the l-lies. The glamours and the…the lack of sleep."

"Quirinus?"

"You will never p-prevail." His words seem to come apart at random, as if stretched too tautly over his mouth. "He can d-d… d-do things you can never i-i-im-m-magine. You cannot…eh, eh… escape him. Except…in one w-way."

The rasp returns. "No, you fool, not now!"

The next sound is feet running, staggering, and a man screaming. A blistering shriek. A rush of air filling the frozen boy's ears. And then, silence. No more flames.

And the voice of his headmaster. "You can come out now, Neville - it's safe."

The boy remembers a moment with his grandmother. She is being told that her son was a hero by the Minister of Magic. She is smiling until she hears the word "was", and then something changes in her face. It is a thing shaped like a smile, but it is no longer a smile. The stiffness of her wrinkled face is what he feels now, as though he is bound by a rictus of false feeling. Like life, but not life. All he wants inside is to die.

The boy struggles to his feet and creeps around the now-empty mirror. The floor is bare but for a pile of ashes, what remains of the dark arts professor.

He looks more pitiful than you would have imagined. You find it hard to believe that he could have made it this far to retrieve the stone.

"Your friends are safe," you say. "It has been, shall we say, a long night. Give me the stone."

The boy's face goes blank.

"Come, now, Neville," you say, "let us draw this evening to a close. Give me the stone and you'll be back in your little bed before you know it."

"But…but I don't…have it," the boy says.

•

Point of view is important. And the interesting part of telling a story that has been told to you in fragments by many people is that you can choose the angle from which to re-tell the story. One can create a picture by using multiple perspectives. One can even postulate the point of view of a person who is involved but has not given it. Sometimes this last can be useful in getting to a point. So here's my point.

Let's say you're a scheming bastard who runs a school.

Let's say you hear that a dark wizard is trying to return to life, and you hear of an attempt at stealing a stone that would return him to life. So you confer with the fellow who has created the stone, and he suggests that you hide it in a mirror that he has lying around. He even comes up with a spell to use, one that hides the stone from anyone who would want to use it. You think this is wise, because that hides the stone even from its creator, who's a little bit of a wild card given his unique perspective as the oldest living man, and you know he would not want to part with immortality.

You also see this as an opportunity. You have a boy under your supervision, a quiet, shy, unmotivated boy who needs to be brought along and molded to serve a greater purpose. He has managed to find a few sympathetic friends to carry him along, for better or worse. There is a girl who is very book-smart and desperately in need of friends herself, and there is a boy who has an equally desperate need to prove himself. By no accident they are brought together when a troll is allowed to gain entrance to the school and threatens the girl. In defeating the troll they all gain a sense of power when they are together – however false it may be, as they have defeated the troll only by the purest luck in your estimation.

You realize they are now primed for adventuring, and the shy boy is in need of experiences that will mold him in the right way. His grandmother has done a great deal towards this end, continuing the process that the misfortune befalling his parents had begun, but not quite enough. You see that a kind of inverse variant on the hero's quest is in order.

You convince the ancient creator of the stone that it would be safest at your school, and then through various subtle machinations convince the staff to create a series of obstacles that a clever first-year and a chess-player who can ride a broom can overcome. It is your belief that the dark wizard's minion, who knows the significance of the Longbottom boy, will attempt to retrieve the stone and kill the boy, the completion of which you will not allow. You watch as the children discover the cerberus and know it is a matter of time before they investigate further. What you had not expected was that the Granger girl would report you to the board of governors, and that they would summon you at that very moment.

Even though at this point the lives of the children are in danger, you know that since the Longbottom boy will surely creep along at the rear, it is more likely that one of the two more outgoing children would be injured or killed, which, though regrettable, would not sway the outcome of the adventure for the boy and might perhaps enhance its impact upon him. Your original plan was to lead the students through the series of traps, which the other two would unravel in front of the hapless Longbottom, revealing him to himself as useless without help and reinforcing his low self-esteem and his need to rely upon you– so in the interest of carrying this out, weighing it against the alternative, you respond to the board's summons, stun everyone there, and obliviate and confund them before returning to the school, congratulating yourself on the fact that only a wizard of your caliber would be capable of such a thing.

By this point the children have somehow enlisted the help of your Charms professor and arranged for him to bypass the obstacles while they continued to the mirror. True to your expectations, they all reach the mirror at the same time that Quirrell does. When you arrive, the two other children and Flitwick are confronting Quirrell, who is acting somewhat out of character to anyone who didn't know he was in league with Voldemort.

Longbottom is behind the mirror, a victim of the compulsion and mild petrificus charms the mirror had waiting for him, surely filled with self-loathing because he is unable to make himself help his friends. He's already taken the stone from the mirror – you know this because you have just attempted to remove it, with no response from the mirror - and he will keep it until you have dispensed with the minor threat of Quirrell and shown the boy that he is worthless without your training, which will one day make him brave and worthy enough for his friends.

You have Flitwick remove the other children, and then you discover that Quirrell is under the burden of a much darker magic than you expected – but before you can defeat this magic, Quirrell manages to wrest back his self-control and throw himself into the flames in despair. You approach the boy, feeling not altogether unsatisfied at the way things have gone, and ask for the stone. But the boy does not have it.

The reason for this is simple. When you arrived, things were a little chaotic. You didn't think about who was present in the room. Hermione looked into the mirror thinking of the research she might do on the stone to plumb its possibilities. Neville thought of his damaged parents and wondered if they could be healed. Flitwick had no ability not to covet such a profoundly charmed object. And even you yourself, in your heart of hearts, know that if you possessed the stone your great work would continue indefinitely, that the world would receive the benefit of your wisdom and power for an untold age, and that death would not prematurely and uselessly end your service to the greater good. However, there was one person present who had no desire to live forever or heal anyone or research the stone – his only desire was to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

Ron Weasley left the room with the stone in his pocket. He and Hermione waited until Flitwick had left before going up to the owlery. Wrapped in a spare bit of parchment, the Philosopher's Stone was returned to Nicholas Flamel by a brown Hogwarts owl, with a note suggesting that it be hidden somewhere else, perhaps where first-year Hogwarts students wouldn't find it.

•

Now. Dolores. So things were very tough at the best magic school in Britain at the beginning of Ginny's fourth year there. The government were taking advantage of the large number of missteps that the headmaster had made by publicly questioning his efficacy and also inserting their own representative as an instructor in defending against the dark arts, whatever those might be. The representative was a squat, powdery-smelling woman named Dolores Umbridge.

I can't say she was a sympathetic person in any way. She was at turns saccharine, vituperative, bigoted, narrow-minded, sadistic and cruel, and really just bitchy all round, and loved pink and kittens in a way that only a person with acidic sludge coating their hypothetical soul could. Her office at Hogwarts was regarded with dread by anyone summoned there, not only because of the punishments or fear of them but also because it was decorated in a manner that, had Van Gogh seen it, would have persuaded him to keep the ear and send over the eyes instead.

She made her presence known at Hogwarts (I hate writing that name. I just do.) at the feast that begins every year there, following the inexplicably divisive and pigeon-holing, typecasting, personality-dooming ritual of slapping a leather hat on a child's head and telling them not only what sort of person they are but what sort of person, despite any wishes or efforts on their part, they are likely to be for the rest of their lives, and that they therefore ought to live with a bunch of other people who are the same way rather than… I'm going off on a rant, clearly. It's just that children, all things being equal, are possessed of a very special gift for a very limited time in their lives before they are obliged to conform to their community's will in the interests of survival, and that gift is a blissful lack of self-awareness. Unless a child has a parent or two who may believe it's useful to tell a child what her nature is in very specific terms, she is often left to discover and decide it for herself, and even make changes to it as she wishes. Somehow the idea of shining a brutal light in the eyes of an eleven-year old, scorching her core with it, and then shoving her, still flash-blind, into a group of similarly-branded strangers doesn't seem right for a well-thought-of place of learning. But, shockingly, I digress.

So Dolores had been given the position of Professor of Defense Against The Dark Arts. Her primary objective, to her knowledge, was to de-emphasize the practical nature of the subject and to refute any and all claims that Tom Riddle had returned. Beneath that, of course, were wheels within wheels. Her superior, the then-Minister of Magic, was a blustering career politician whose authority, to his mind, hinged on two things: the perception that under his leadership all was well, and the inability of the people of magical England to unite against him should things turn sour. To these ends he drew from what now appears to have been a time-honored tradition: placate the people with platitudes, loudly declaiming that a problem doesn't exist while sowing fear by the mention of it; reduce the people's ability to think clearly about the subject (using fear), remove their ability to think or act in their own interests (fear again), and convince them that the only way to handle the problem is to sit back and let his government handle it (kind of like Stockholm syndrome in a way). The goal was a cowed populace who lacked skills and education and were thus inclined to go along with whatever he wanted. A really horrible thing to do to people who live all around you, or anywhere, really.

(And it would be fair to say that when I tell this story that sometimes my point of view is that of the original teller, and I say that's not only a blessing and fun but it happens all the time, whether you think about it or not.)

The ironic thing is, people who use fear as a tool to control a populace are usually motivated by it. Fudge (more irony – perfect name, really; strange how magical folks wind up shackled to their names) was internally and externally a small man who felt (secretly, rightly) that he had attained his post by trickery and favors – that he had somehow spent his cleverness and capital to get there, and once at the top of the mountain he could not seem to find his balance without calling for help. In the early days of his Ministry he had consulted with the great "light" wizard of the age, sodding Dumbledore, but the advice that he got was not to his liking because it came with a price – that at every turn, he was made to feel like a clumsy schoolboy before his erstwhile headmaster, which further gnawed at his little round bellyful of doubt. As people who crave reassurance do, he soon found a new source of advice in the form of a malevolently canny political fixer named Lucius Malfoy.

Who, I believe, we have met.

Malfoy was the head of a family that would be generally referred to as aristocratic, which to my mind means money and a superior attitude. The family claimed "pure blood," another way of saying "we all knew each other very, very well," and also a long unbroken line of ancestry into the distant past. It turns out that last wasn't exactly true. The English branch of the family went back a few hundred years, which I would think is not that uncommon for people who live in a country much older than two centuries, but they were an unwilling offshoot of a French family who'd had enough of a certain son's general unpleasantness. (I know this because Bill, who worked at the bank as a cursebreaker, had occasion to read the records collected by the truly ancient and very meticulous race of goblins that ran the place.) Not that you'd ever hear that from the Malfoys, though – to ask them one would think that at the base of the highest, oldest peak in England, there was a cornerstone with their name on it. And there might have been, but it would have been relatively recent and carved by a servant of some kind. The Malfoy family believed in the value of the family brand, the sanctity of "old" money, the bedrock of the class system, and the base inferiority of people who couldn't perform magic.

The first time Tom reared his scaly head, Lucius had been drawn in by his assertion that purity was paramount, that lesser types were leading the magical world to destruction, and that the right order of things called for a certain hierarchy: pure-bloods, then half-bloods for servants or workers, perhaps, and then – as far as non-magicals, those born to them, or magical creatures were concerned – the rest were animals, playthings.

And as I may have touched upon before, the idea of other sentient beings as playthings greatly appealed to Lucius Malfoy.

So he fell in with a man more sociopathic than he, and followed his rise, thrilled at the new sport and the power, and reveled in the destruction and torture, and found an unexpected boon in the promise his leader made of deathlessness for his most faithful of followers. The journey was equal parts agony and pleasure, until the two somehow blended into one sustained rush of momentum that he could not resist – nor did he want to. Murder after murder, torture after torture, every wish he had – granted. Until one awful night, when everything fell apart. His leader, the man who broke him and remade him, was gone.

Once your every wish has been fulfilled, especially if the wishes are dark, upon the cessation of fulfillment you will feel a kind of flatness, the insufficiency of mundane life, and you will find your existence to be without direction. Unsatisfying. Lucius was able to collect himself sufficiently to profess his innocence of his crimes by reason of being cursed to act against his will, and because the nature of the mark Tom placed on his followers was not understood, he was able with the use of part of his fortune to remain a free man. Free from prison, anyway, but not from the great and burning desire to have things as they had been when he was being led by Tom. But he was, as I have indicated, a sociopath of sorts, and was able to conceal these desires from the court that tried him and the officials that he bribed, and was to bribe. He knew the power of fear very intimately and was able to use it to manipulate the weak of mind into thinking that they were following their own wills and not just doing his bidding.

Which returns us to Fudge. Where Dumbledore had failed because he was unable to relate to Fudge in any way that did not first indicate the Minister's inferiority to the grand old man, Lucius succeeded by taking a page from the same book Fudge might have – telling Fudge that power was something he deserved, telling him that surely there could be no threat to his authority, giving him desperately-needed advice on how to carry out his job (so that he never had to actually learn to do it), and giving him enough money and support that Fudge found himself, eventually, utterly beholden to and utterly dependent on Lucius, and yet somehow too egotistical – and ultimately ashamed - to admit it. Lucius' wishes became Fudge's own, because to acknowledge otherwise would be to see his world, attained as an impostor, collapse around him. He would cease to be powerful, and would once again be the hapless schoolboy, stuttering at the feet of those greater than he.

So in the interest of protecting his pink and quivering newborn mouse of a heart, Fudge ordered Dolores to reduce the teaching of Defense to a theoretical exercise, thus staving off a future generation of people able to feel their own strength – for, being a magical human, he was prone to long life, and he was willing to invest in the future – and whispers of the return of a dark lord would really only serve him, if the populace really had something to fear, if they were unable to defend themselves.

Dolores began her task with a strong statement of purpose at the school feast that night. Her assertion that the Ministry wanted to take a firm hand in the "right-thinking" education of its populace was not well received by most of the students and faculty present. Naturally they felt that this outside influence could not be a good thing. They were further convinced of this when, in the first class Dolores taught, she instructed them to put their wands away, as they wouldn't be needing them for the course. Hermione and Ron's objections led to a very rare show of temper from Dolores, who shrilly informed the class that any assertions that the public were in any danger were lies and would not be tolerated. She went on to ask the class what someone who tried to make them fearful would have to gain by telling such lies. Unfortunately a majority of the class, unaware of the truth behind many of the events at the school, were looking at the two Gryffindors and began asking themselves the question offered. As people often do, they ate what was set before them.

At this point it should be noted that there was a confluence of events created by the different factions here that influenced the moment. One was the utter deviousness of Dolores, Fudge, and Malfoy, who were accusing their opponents of the strategy they themselves were using. The other was a hubris-fuelled pretense, a covetousness of the truth and the belief that none other was equipped to handle it, perpetrated by sodding Dumbledore himself, who had decided that the student body were capable of hearing him say that Voldemort had returned but were not ready to hear any useful details to make sense of it with.

So plenty of blame, all round.

The few who spoke up were punished, but this made a few people come to their senses a little – or at least shift a little of their suspicion-driven ire from Hermione and Ron and subsequently Neville (who had quietly objected to the treatment of his classmates). Small comfort. The three students found themselves, one after the other, seated alone with Dolores in her otherwise empty classroom. To walk into the normally crowded Defense classroom, usually full of desks and apparatus, and find the room bare but for one student's desk and chair and one hideous Queen Anne wingback on a low platform is a little disquieting. The first thing you think is, what animal spirit-guide of bad taste did someone get to stand still so they could eviscerate it and the goo could splatter onto the chair in just that fashion? The second thing would be, how creepy is it that she put her chair on a platform?

Subsequent thoughts would include, "I must not tell li- OW!" – because Dolores had decided that, in order to more clearly etch her point into the consciousness of each pupil, she would use a very illegal artifact known as a blood quill. The principle behind one is simple, and was put into practice originally to sign binding agreements. The holder attempts to write something on a piece of parchment without ink. The pen draws blood from the hand of the writer to substitute for ink. In doing so, a cut in the shape of the words written appears on the writer's hand, leaving no doubt in his or her mind what has just been agreed to. The thing is, it's very painful, and also it leaves a scar after repeated usage. A more or less permanent one, barring a lot of magic or more extreme measures. Not what any reasonable person would inflict upon, say, a teenager. What can you imagine that would be so important for the teenager to remember every time he or she looks down while cutting a steak or tying a shoelace or one day patting the cheek of a child?

"I must not tell lies."

Well, we all tell lies. For example, Dolores lied when she told Fudge that she had experience teaching children. She didn't. But it was a lie that shaped a situation and got her what she wanted, which was a position of power from which she could exact revenge. More on that later. Some people believe that their lies are acceptable because they achieve certain results, whereas the lies of others are immoral, regardless of the result. This makes me wonder at their ability to empathize with their fellow beings, but again, I digress.

The three children made a pact. To complain about their treatment was to let the horrible woman win. For Hermione this had been a tough sell. Her first impulse had been to go straight to a teacher, McGonagall perhaps, but Ron's adamancy, his seriousness about keeping stoic, surprised her. She realized that there were things about him that she didn't know, and found herself wanting very much to respect his wishes. Neville was quite used to suffering in silence, as he was training regularly with Dumbledore and Snape, and one more bit of pain wouldn't push him over the edge. In any event, the children decided to start up a secret dueling association to pick up the slack in their education. Hermione researched spells (many of which Neville already knew, but he remained quiet in his way, because it meant so much to the girl), and they drilled themselves and other students in a room that they'd discovered quite by accident one night when Hermione had taken to pacing in an empty hall and obsessing about their need for a hidden, secure place to practice.

Now, where was Ginny during all this? Oh, she wouldn't have missed it. She was there. Only, no one knew about it at first. The reason for this was that my father did her a kindness. He'd known that she was scared at the beginning of her second year, had known that she was dreading school and having to face all of the people there, even though she had not been herself when all of the bad things had happened before, so he lent her a family heirloom to help out with that, a cloak that made the wearer invisible. So she shadowed the three older students, learned the spells, and practiced them on her own, just as she had with a broom, until she felt that she was as capable as any other student. She appeared at one of their meetings one day, demanding to be included in their group. Ron frowned but folded his arms and said nothing, and Neville nodded his head gravely. The only one of the three to have anything to say about it was Hermione, who said that she was already too far behind to catch up and might hold the class back.

The next thing that she had to say was "whulf," as she was set upon her backside by the spell she'd taught the group at the last meeting. She was not one to frown on ability and enthusiasm, though she did mutter about being caught off-guard as she was being helped to her feet. Ron spoke softly to Hermione, but just loudly enough for Ginny to hear, saying that they always needed to be ready, that you never knew when you would have to defend yourself because an enemy wasn't always going to announce themselves, were they, and that it was probably a good lesson for everyone there. This last was something that Lily Potter had said on more than one occasion when they were smaller, when one of the younger ones had some kind of mishap, to sort of bring all them together and spread out the burden of the mistake, so to speak, and it was a small thing, but something that helped to keep them all close, and when Ginny heard those words coming from Ron she felt something inside that was hard to put words to, but it was a good feeling, and not the fight she'd expected. When the meeting was over, she went to Ron to talk to him about it, faintly sour words about not-just-tagging-along in her mind, but he seemed reluctant to dwell on it. He was still an awkward boy at this stage, but he managed to talk a little with his sister, though there were a lot more shrugs than strictly necessary. He said that he felt like he was supposed to look after her, but he couldn't always do it, and she was too sneaky to keep track of all the time anyway, and it was good for her to be able to defend herself; and she was already pretty good, though maybe not as good as he. She poked him in the arm and they didn't talk about it again.

So in the interest of clamping down on the school and furthering the Fudge agenda, Dolores had begun instituting a series of edicts from the Ministry. The curious thing about them was that they related to issues that she was having with the school and the students on a daily basis. She wanted to replace a few of the professors – most notably Trelawney but also Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper and Magical Creatures instructor – and a new decree appeared, as if by magic, making it possible for her to do so. Unfortunately for her, it was worded so that the headmaster had to be unable to find a replacement before she could do as she wished, but this was, she felt, a minor setback. She merely did what all bureaucrats did in this situation: she had more decrees issued. Student groups were limited to only those approved of by her; punishments and removal from the school were at her discretion; teachers were forbidden to speak to students about anything other than the subjects they taught; Luna's father's newspaper, which was critical of her administration and hinted at Tom's return, was banned in the school. Ginny virtually lived in detention with Rubeus (though she loved the large man and got assigned to him only because she acted as though she was afraid of him) because she kept asking "undesirable" questions in Dolores' class. Every decree the woman issued gave her a little thrill, as evidenced by a small twitch on her lips that she got whenever she announced a new one to a group of now-cowed and timorous students. Her chin would be lifted slightly, her hairdo appearing autocratic in its utter motionlessness, and pervading all in her proximity a scent of powder along with flowers that one might suspect were smashed and ground perhaps unnecessarily harshly.

Well, other things were afoot, and I don't want to over-complicate this story - your writer says about ninety thousand words too late - so let us just say that throughout the school year things had gotten considerably harder for most of the students of the school. Dolores had collected a group of the more aggressively asinine children of Ministry supporters and made them her little deputies, to assist in the carrying out of the various decrees. Let it not be said that they were all little bastards, but rather that in a dictatorship, people will often scrabble amongst themselves for whatever power they can get, and it's better to be at the top of a pile of dung than buried somewhere towards the bottom. So after Dolores had managed to get Dumbledore out of the school, some of her misguided mini-thugs stumbled upon the dueling club and brought it to her attention. She was able to apprehend them all at exactly the worst possible time, for reasons I may yet get to, and had the obvious leaders of the group dragged up to her hideous office for a bit of interrogation, and perhaps coercion via exposure to copious amounts of chintz and kitten paraphernalia. And failing that, truth serum and torture.

Hermione was a good girl, really. She had always been one to follow the rules, not just because she was a good girl, but because she loved knowing what she was supposed to do and doing it. This was very satisfying to her. The most difficult learning experience in her life thus far, then, had been discovering that the Ministry that ran her world was not looking out for her, not acting in her best interests but rather its own. The idea had been that if she worked hard and did what was expected of her (and a bit more), she would be rewarded with good grades, success in her career, and security. This scenario was currently being drowned face-first in a dirty toilet. The Ministry had sent this woman here, knowing what she was, and given her every tool she wanted to dominate the school, turning a blind eye to the use of forbidden magical artifacts on students. And now here she was, eyes a little too wide, words clipped too short as if she were trying to keep something from escaping her mouth, ranting and riding a crescendo towards what peak Hermione could only dread. She realized that this had gone well out of her control, or revealed that she had been foolish to think she had ever been in control of anything, and that maybe she wasn't so clever after all if she couldn't see this coming, but who could? Trapped here in this kitschy nightmare, the powder smell pressing into her nostrils, far from anything familiar, far from her dull parents and their mundane nights after work and their paltry understanding of who their daughter was and what the world was really like...

Into the face of this terrified girl Dolores hissed her bile-soaked anger. She hated children. All of them. They should not be allowed to think, or speak. They were hateful, vicious liars, and they must be corrected. They must be cleansed.

Those words frightened Hermione into action. She began to cry, and told Dolores that they had been sneaking out of the school at night to work in the forest with Dumbledore on a weapon to be used against Fudge. Dolores slapped Hermione's face hard enough to leave a mark and instructed her and Neville and Ron to take her to the weapon.

Well, I like Hermione a lot. She thought very quickly in a horrible situation and figured out a possible solution to the problem. Go to the Forbidden Forest, hang about where Rubeus' giant brother was known to be, and get him to help them. Surely he wouldn't have any problem with Dolores.

Grawp took one whiff of Dolores and promptly backed away.

Right into a herd of centaurs who had come to investigate what all the noise was about.

Dolores at this point made a bit of a tactical error. She assumed that her petty authority, granted to her by the only person she could imagine to actually have any, would carry over into the darkened woodlands as well. But alas, as a sodding asshole I know would say of her authority, its jaundiced and intermittent light could not loft its beam that far into the forest primeval. In return for her harsh words of superiority over those possessed of rational thought set upon broad uncloven hoof, she was taken up into rough and well-muscled arms and spirited off for an evening of what they considered justice, or at least entertainment.

A while after she was found staggering out of the woods and brought to the infirmary, she came back to herself, violently resisted all attempts to examine her and, with the use of a few spells that were clearly what one might call dark, managed to wound and incapacitate Poppy Pomfrey and escape the school grounds, leaving behind a different smell than her usual one of crushed vague and insipid flora - a scent of decay.

She faded into slight obscurity at that point, refusing to return to work presumably because those reporting Tom's return had been vindicated. After a particularly long absence, a not entirely unsympathetic co-worker decided to floo to her house and try to convince her to return to the office, to do what was possible – make amends, defend herself, anything, but to do something – and found herself stepping out of the fireplace into a silent parlour, painstakingly ordered but with a faint layer of dust on every surface. She wandered through the house calling out, but received no reply. She was about to leave when, in an upstairs corridor, she became aware, underneath the must of disuse and the faint powdered flower smell, of a rotten odor which she followed to a tensely pink bathroom, in which she found the remains of Dolores Umbridge, half-submerged and almost unrecognizable, in a large white claw-footed bathtub.

When Aurors were summoned and investigated, they found no traces of foul play, and the death was ruled natural by way of a massive infection from a large wound found on her stomach. Examination would reveal that the wound was years, perhaps decades, old and showed signs of repeated amateur treatments, necrosis in the tissue, and the remnants of liquids that must have oozed almost constantly from it. It was shown that the wound would certainly have caused her great pain and would have been extremely difficult to keep clean. It was impossible to determine what might have caused this wound and speculation was pointless as to why she had not sought treatment for it and instead kept it a secret for many years.

But it explained the strong scent of powder and flowers.

What is it like? To have a façade of order that covers a wound as wild as a thicket of briar; to espouse purity with a relief map of corruption on one's belly? What story makes sense of a wound that one must keep secret and suffer with, and how does it connect with the story of a woman obsessed with forcing children to believe that they should not defend themselves and that all intelligent beings that are not human are but savage animals, to be dominated and destroyed at will?

I've mentioned that I find it odd how many people in magical society are driven by their names – that is to say, it's as if a geis is placed upon the shoulders of the infant, leading them inexorably toward some destiny. It's not clear to me who would want this for their child, as so many of these names bespeak unhappiness of one kind or another – but this woman, I think, is a victim of the same curse, but perhaps not in the obvious way. It's easy to think of her surname and imagine she would end up an argumentative or offensive person, and in point of fact she was, but when I heard her entire story I couldn't help but think of her secret, and the wretched nature of her inner life and the tragic things that made her who she was; and the feelings I have are not all of distaste, or loathing, but are somewhat sad.

Dolorous, really.

•

Bill says that this story is better when someone tells it about me than when I tell it about myself. I'm not sure I know why that is. He says that I spend too much time talking about how other things looked or smelled and not enough time talking about what was said. For some reason he thinks that it's enough to just recall the conversation, and that somebody else should be doing it. And maybe he's right.

However. Sometimes he will have to just kiss my arse. So it's daylight in Surrey, daylight all round. It has just rained. The streets of Little Whinging are shining with water. Even as a formless observer, your cheeks would be sore from the glare. Once your hypothetical eyes acclimate, the sun sharpens all edges through the clear afternoon air. The sky is the sharp blue of renewal. The heavy gray clouds are pushed back towards the horizon like autumn leaves raked in haste. A series of boxy, top-heavy cars is beaded with moisture in a succession of glistening, spotless driveways that recedes around a gentle curve in the road. Given the uniformity of the houses, it's easy to imagine them going on forever. A young man is standing halfway up a concrete walkway leading to one of the houses. He's been dropped here for a few moments while his mother goes down the street to speak to a friend of hers, a woman with no magic.

In front of him is a thin woman with hair the color of drought-parched hay. The collar of her single-buttoned gray sweater seems to give the impression of containing something within her, and this impression is occasionally supported by what appears to be the faintest of tremors in her hand when it worries the button.

Speech bursts from her like the lurch of brakes on an old bicycle. "Have you found the lord?" she says.

The young man, who we'll call D, is taken a little aback.

"We're not looking for him right now," he says. After a moment of trying to figure out how to ask, and not understanding her expression, he says, "Are you... looking for him?"

"I've already found him," she says, with a smile he can't read. "I am his humble servant."

D is surprised she is saying this openly. He says, "Er, why? I thought you couldn't do magic."

Her smile falters, but remains. "He accepts everyone," she says.

D finds his eyebrows rising. "But he thinks his kind of people are better than other people."

She says, "All people are the same in his eyes."

D imagines a bulwark of anonymous bones, and finds he agrees.

"But all of the pain and suffering he causes…"

"That is simply how life is," she says, as if speaking to a child. "By passing through suffering we reach the path to eternal glory."

D is at a loss.

"In any event, surely our suffering cannot compare to his," she says, leaning forward slightly and lowering her voice. "After all, he died for you."

That makes no sense to him. "He didn't die for me, and anyway, he came back."

"At least you don't deny that fact," she says. "That's the first step."

He says, "I have to fight him and people who follow him all the time now – how could I deny it?"

"Yes, it seems like such a struggle, doesn't it?" she says. "You fight it night and day, until you reach a point where he simply cannot be denied anymore. And in the end," she says, leaning back again with something that looks like satisfaction, "you realize that it's much easier to simply… accept him."

D is beyond being at sea. What random thoughts he is trying to assemble are about to be utterly dispelled.

"He has a plan for you, you know," she says.

That is quite unnerving.

"How… do you know that?"

"It's written in the words of the Prophets."

D wonders if his mother has told anyone else besides the family, and also wonders if maybe everybody knows. But this is all a bit much. What's wrong with this woman, anyway? Is she a glutton for punishment?

"Listen," he says, "this lord of yours only accepts people who are pure in his eyes, and everyone else can go to hell."

"People need to learn their lessons and find their places in this life," she says, a little strained, "and that's what your free will is for. But regardless, young man, you will join with the lord eventually, because of the one great shining truth that you will learn for yourself."

"Um… and what might that be?"

She gets her smile back. It's not right. It just looks like one. She leans back in, and half whispers.

"He's already with you. Inside. He always has been."

D's hand goes to his forehead. He is absolutely rattled by this. It's something he has suspected for a while, but to hear it said, and by this woman…and she is without a doubt wrong in the head, and he says so. "You're touched, lady." She nods. He tries again. "Listen, maybe this wasn't explained to you properly at the meetings. He believes that you are created in an inferior way. You're iflawed/i."

She nods again. D shakes his head in frustration and says, "No matter what he or anyone else tells you, because of this supposed flaw in your nature, you're going to end up in flames if he has his way, just like everyone else."

The rictus goes away.

"Lily's son!" she says. "Through and through."

She turns abruptly and totters like a wind-up toy through her front door. It closes rapidly. D hears the sound of more latches than are strictly necessary. He stands still and hears his own breathing, but has to think for a moment to figure out what it means. His thoughts are interrupted by the footsteps of his mother returning.

"What on earth was that?" she says, shifting the baby in his sling. "What were you talking about?"

"Voldemort," D says, and hears it echoed off of the faces of the uniform houses.

"I didn't know she even knew the name," she says. "Honestly, I'm surprised she's not going on about Jesus or something."

"Yeah," D says. "I'm sorry, who?"

•

So. Hermione.

Give me a minute.

•

It's been a ridiculously long time. I can plead "baby", and I can plead "busy", and I can plead "I got some very good advice from someone that as it turns out I am unable to follow", but in the end it just took refocusing my thoughts here. There are scenes I have written already I can't wait to submit, and there's a good bit more story to tell. As far as this chapter goes, I was considering just putting it out as a separate entity, in the same universe and serving as a bit of background, but in the end I couldn't stop thinking of it as a way that D avoids remembering some things, and liked him doing it for an entire chapter. Thanks to m. and S., known in that order for obvious reasons, for reading through it. Thanks to F. L.-F., for being a better reader than I am a writer. Thanks to J. and j. for delighting me. And for those of you who waited patiently or otherwise, thank you very, very much for reading.


End file.
